


Raised By Wolves

by auburn



Category: Criminal Minds, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Arson, Assault & Battery, Bad Friend Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Bad Parenting, Case Fic, Crossover, Death, Depression, Drama, FBI, Gen, Hate Crimes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Investigation, Kanima, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Misery, Murder, Mutilation, Neglect, Pack Politics, Rape, Referenced Child Molestation, Referenced Statutory Rape, Serial Killers, Sexual Assault, Suicide, Supernatural - Freeform, Supporting Teen Wolf Characters, These Tags Are Like a List to Beware, Torture, Trauma, bau, full shift wolves, psychopaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 186,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auburn/pseuds/auburn
Summary: An alternate universe mash of season one and two (with later elements), where the FBI is called in to investigate the murders in a small town. Peter doesn't manage to kill Kate, the kanima is not Jackson, Scott McCall is a failure as a friend, Stiles has to face some hard truths, Derek's never been human, the BAU sees what they expect to see, and Gerard Argent is still more monstrous than any werewolves.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Up front: If Scott McCall is your jam, this is not.
> 
> If you don't like Derek Hale, drive on.
> 
> Please check the tags and warning if you have triggers. I'm not explicit, but I am frank. If a tag is missing, do comment, and I will (likely) add it.
> 
> Like most of my stories these days, this is a response to both canon and fanon. 
> 
> Niggling thing: Since Mountain Ash is a tree (or wood), to be accurate I would need to call it Mountain Ash ash. Which I refuse to do on grounds of it's stupid. So I use Rowan ash. Please don't correct me, it's deliberate.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No this didn't grow another chapter. After beta revision, part four was too big and has been split, resulting in six chapters now.

**~~~August 13, 2012~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

**ScottieDMC:** People suck so much. Someone hit this deer, then dumped it at the clinic. #baddrivers #deer #vet #deaton #roadkill #animalcruelty #beaconhills

 **Image:** Close up, deer hide with spiral sliced into it.

 **ScottieDMC:** Think they tried to butcher it and chickened out. #poachers #creeps #venison #deer

 **ScottieDMC:** How hard is it to be a vegetable? #vegetables #nomeat

 **IAmNotRobin:** Vegetarian, Scott. Vegetable means brain dead. Vegetarian means only eating fruits and vegetables, no animals. No enchiladas for you. #nothappening #yourmom'scooking #yesmeat #hungry

**~~~August 14, 2012~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

**1 – (–-) – 555-5551.**

_You have one voicemail. Press –_

_Beep._

_"Dad, I'm heading to Beacon Hills to tie off some loose ends. Got a ping on one of my alerts. Someone's leaving animals with a revenge spiral carved into them there."_

~~~

**1 - (–-) – 555-5421.**

_You have three voicemails. Press –_

_"Make sure there are no strays left running around this time before your brother arrives. He doesn't need to know about these animal mutilations either."_

**~~~August 14, 2012~~**

**Sickle Moon**

She tapped her fingers against the table next to her laptop. The alerts she'd set up for Beacon Hills had brought her to some kid's Tumblr page and a series of awkward cellphone pics of a dead deer. One of them was clear enough though. The spiral couldn't be mistaken for anything accidental.

She had to go back.

**~~~August 17, 2012~~~**

**New Moon**

**8.43.01 pm est. Call Received.**

LH: _"I know I stuck you with all the work."_

DH: _"I don't care about that, I just think coming back is a terrible idea. We could move him here."_

LH: _"It's our territory. We – I – need to rebuild."_

DH: _"With what?"_

LH: _"I have an appointment with the lawyers. We're both over twenty-one. They can't tie up the estate any longer, plus there's the trust funds."_

DH: _"I don't want – "_

LH: _"Well, do you want a bunch of bloodsucking lawyers and the banks to have it?"_

DH: _"No."_

LH: _"I tried to see Peter today and got the runaround. I'm not his legal guardian. That's some lawyer appointed by a judge. And that nurse, Jennifer? Is a total bitch."_

DH: _"You didn't rip her to pieces?"_

LH: _"No, but I wanted to."_

DH: _"I've got everything ready to go but no place to send it."_

LH: _"Yeah, can't send it to my hotel room. I'll get a storage unit, okay?"_

DH: _"What about the house?"_

LH: _"Oh my God. Everyone acts like it's public property. Joggers are using all the trails and it looked like high school kids have been using the house to party. I found so many roaches and used condoms."_

DH: _"Ugh."_

LH: _"I'm going to go by the police station and lodge a complaint. Not that that'll do much good. I could put up some motion sensitive cameras and get the trespassers on video – "_

DH: _"Sure, that'll do a lot of good."_

LH: _"Or the owners could let some big, vicious dogs out there at night. Scare the shit out of them."_

DH: _"Stick with the cameras. We don't need the attention reports of vicious dogs would get."_

LH: _"I know, I know. It just pisses me off. Look, I'll call you tomorrow with the arrangements for the storage unit."_

DH: _"Once I get that done, I'll hit the road."_

LH: _"Good, I miss your stupid face."_

DH: _"I still don't think it's safe, but you're in charge."_

LH: _"That's right. Look, it'll be fine. Maybe if we're here, Peter will get better."_

DH: _"You think?"_

LH: _"Look, I've got to go – I've got another call. Talk to you tomorrow."_

DH: _"Kind of late, isn't it?"_

LH: _"Hey, it's three hours earlier here, remember?"_

DH: _"Okay. Bye."_

LH: _"Goodnight, baby bro."_

**8.49.61 pm est. End Call.**

**~~~August 19, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

**1.11 am pst**

Another woman would have laughed at how easy it was, but Julia had given up whatever joy had remained in her to bring herself this far. Fooling the ignorant came nearly effortlessly to her now she had embraced all the magics her teachers once insisted she eschew.

Avoiding the druid should have been harder, but Deaton's wards had been weak and limited even when he had maintained them.

Now they were as ephemeral as frost in the sun.

Even so, it had taken her over a year to find this clearing. The damaged werewolf she had chosen no longer remembered the way to it.

Peter waited silently beside Julia, as mindless as an attack dog, as she'd shaped him, as his alpha arrived in answer to his call. The alpha recognized him, of course. Her surprise was her downfall as Peter struck her down.

The clearing glowed under the round silver eye of the moon. Black blood soaked into the stump, the first of many sacrifices it would need to wake its power again. Julia felt it stir, though, and smiled, as Peter opened new alpha crimson eyes, finally completely awake and aware again.

His enraged howls were annoying though. She had to command him into silence. Julia's control over Peter wavered as the new power in him tried to beat her back.

"Hush, hush," she told him. "Haven't I told you you'll have your revenge? This was necessary. She betrayed you like they all did."

Her glamour settled his mind into obedience once more, but she realized keeping a full-strength alpha werewolf enthralled would not be so easy as she'd expected.

And Julia knew, better than anyone, how dangerous a murderous werewolf could be.

That was why she'd drawn the Argents to this little town, a weaving that had cost her a great deal of power but would be worth it when she was done with all the werewolves.

Her pet desired vengeance, and so did she, but hers would include his blood as well when the time was right.

**~~~August 20, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

**4.11 am est**

His hands shook as he fumbled for his phone. He thought it might be shock. He'd felt this before, like another piece of him had been ripped away, leaving him empty and hopeless.

4:11 est.

No messages, no calls, no texts.

He called, while knowing it was too late.

No answer.

The call went to her voicemail.

He choked out something, begging her to answer the phone, to call him back, send a text, anything, then began dressing. He couldn't wait any longer. He had to leave.

**~~~August 23, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Half Moon**

The rental agent reeled off all the services they could provide. None of which Kate wanted or needed.

 _"The farm's perfect. I'll take the six-month lease. I'll come by with a cashier's check today."_ It would do for Kate's purposes.

_"That's not necessary,"_ the agent murmured.

It was as far as Kate was concerned. It was the closest to cash she could get away with without raising any red flags. She preferred cash to minimize her paper and digital trail, or a fake ID and credit cards, but she would be using her real name since her brother and family were in town. 

_"No. I want to move in immediately and it'll save time on the credit check, won't it?"_

The agent was confused. _"You're talking about the first, last, and deposit? We'll still need to do one."_

_"The full six months and deposit, actually."_

_"Well – "_

_"Great. I'll come by the office around three. Thanks so much."_

Kate stuffed her phone back into her pocket and grinned at the body lying in the fallen leaves.

"You look pretty dead to me, but I guess better safe than sorry, right?" She had an axe and a machete back in her truck. Which one would be better for cutting the body in two? Usually she used a sword.

Someone had got to her prey first, but she wasn't above taking credit anyway.

She decided on the axe. The huge stump the body was on would make the job easier.

Then, just to stir the pot, she decided to move the body where it would be found faster. She only got the lower half onto the hiking trail before she realized she was going to be late to the realtor's office if she didn't get to the bank soon.

With a shrug, she left the top half where it was. The legs would be more than enough freak everyone out.

**~~~August 27, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

**Beacon County Sheriff's Department**

**911 Log**

**Call Received: 8.27.12 12.48.14 pm pst**

**911:** 911, what is your emergency?

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** There's part of a body.

 **911:** A body?

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** Yes! A person's body. Part of it. The – the legs. They – it – [static] on the jogging trail.

 **911:** What is your location, ma'am?

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** We're on the main jogging trail that crosses into the Preserve!

 **911:** How far are you from the trail head? We're dispatching officers now.

 **1-(–-)-555-6532** : Maybe three miles… wait, Sherry's checking her FitBit. She says three point four miles from where we started at the pull-off.

**911:** Thank you.

 **911:** Can you give me your name, ma'am?

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** Marie Benton. Sherry Huntingdon is with me.

 **911:** Thank you. Do you think you're in any danger?

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** Nooooo. Maybe. It's awful. And I don't see the rest of the body.

 **911:** Can you stay there until the officers arrive? They should be there in ten minutes.

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** I guess. We're on our lunch break. Should we just stay here? I don't want to stay here. I'm scared.

 **911** : I'm going to stay on the line with you until the officers arrive, Marie. You're doing great. If you can stay there, that would be good, but if you want to come down to the trail head to wait, that would be all right.

 **1-(–-)-555-6532** : [static] Sherry wants to come down. I don't want [static] a wild animal comes [static].

 **911:** You and Sherry should stay together. Officers are at the pull-off now.

 **Patrol Officer:** We've got a red 2009 Toyota SUV here. License number LAWGA1. Registered to Marie Benton.

 **911:** Call is identified as coming from Marie Benton. Be advised there are two civilians. Second is identified as Sherry Huntingdon.

 **Patrol Officer:** Copy.

 **911:** Marie, the officers are coming up the trail to you now.

 **1-(–-)-555-6532:** I see them. Thank you.

 **911:** They'll take care you.

**Call Ended: 8.27.12 12.51.56 pm pst**

~~~

"What have we got?" Noah asked his undersheriff.

Tara wiped sweat from her hairline. "Well, I'm not the coroner, but the part of the body we have was past rigor, and there's no way the trail was where she died."

"She?"

"She. No ID. Obviously no finger prints. Caucasian. Uh, based on my own observation, between twenty and forty with a five year give or take."

He frowned at the dirt. The body, such as it was, had been taken to the morgue. DeShaun was still circling, taking photographs of everything. Had to love digital cameras. No need to process expensive film, just slot in more memory. Print out the pictures or put them on screen. Noah lost track when the forensic tech started talking about filters and virtual 3D imaging but accepted whatever useful information they generated.

"How do you figure that?" he asked.

"Skin," Tara answered. "Smooth and tight. And she was, um, manicured… "

"You mean pedicured?" Noah corrected with amusement. His wife had loved getting a pedicure, especially when she'd been pregnant. Money had been tight, but he hadn't been willing to deny her the indulgence.

"No, I meant she shaved and trimmed – "

Noah held up his hand to stop her. Jesus. He supposed he had to know, but it felt horribly invasive and wrong that strangers now knew these things about this woman. That should have been between her and her lovers and maybe her gynecologist.

Tara smirked at him.

Noah squinted at her. "She didn't have on any pants?" He didn't imagine Tara or any of his officers had pulled them down if she had been covered.

"Shoes were gone and most of her jeans were torn off," Tara said matter-of-factly.

Noah knew that the examination and autopsy would tell them more reliably, but he needed to know what kind of predator had killed this woman for the sake of every other woman in his jurisdiction. "Did it look like she'd been sexually assaulted?"

"I honestly couldn't tell. She was badly torn up."

He scrubbed at his face, then checked the sun. They still had hours of light, but he guessed they'd be working into the dark. "No sign of the rest of her?"

"Not in the preliminary search."

"All right, we need to organize a formal search, notify the Preserve manager we'll be out here, find out if they know anything, and check the missing persons reports," he directed her. "Call Clark and get her up here with Balto." Maybe the canine officer could sniff out the other half of the body if they hadn't screwed the scene's scent trails too badly. Noah didn't look forward to justifying the cost of bringing in a consultant with a bloodhound. If there had been any chance the victim was still alive it would have been different.

He took a deep breath. He'd be authorizing overtime as it was. Including his own. He waved to Tara. "Get on that, I'll re-arrange the shift patrols."

He walked back down the trail. The two joggers had lucked out and got through to 911, but normally reception out in the Preserve was iffy. Especially late in the day for some reason. His own phone didn't show a bar until he was down at the pull-off, weaving his way between a Park Service truck, the coroner's van, a fire truck and the futile ambulance already parked there along with half a dozen Beacon County Sheriff's Department cruisers to his own.

His son didn't answer, but that wasn't uncommon. Stiles turned his ringer down when he was in school and regularly forgot to restore it. Noah left a message.

"I'm going to be working late tonight. If you don't want to cook, you can get Chinese from Tso's. Get enough to leave some in the fridge for me. Don't forget the spring rolls."

Second year of high school and Stiles had his driver's license and Claudia's Jeep. Noah knew he'd be seeing less of his son anyway this year, but he'd meant to be there tonight. He sighed. Stiles would be all right. The rest of this poor woman needed to be found so she could be identified. Bad enough she would be in pieces when they identified her and reached out to her family.

Stiles would probably leave him some awful cauliflower stir-fry thing. The kid had an unhealthy obsession with his diet. Noah promised himself he'd go through the drive-thru on the way back to the station. Whenever that was.

He knew he did too much overtime and subbed in for too many shifts for his deputies, but he also knew that he was all too likely to have too many drinks if he went home on time. One to relax became two to enjoy led to three to forget and then he'd stop counting. He was okay in a social setting, but by himself, he'd find himself missing Claudia and being stupid.

Better to work late and come home so tired he could just manage eating something and a shower before passing out in his bed.

It wasn't fair to Stiles, but Stiles had already learned that lesson. Better Noah was mostly absent than mostly drunk. He was a nasty drunk according to Melissa. Noah never remembered that part, but if anyone knew about shitty drunks, it was Scott's mom.

Tonight, he wouldn't be making an excuse, though. This case had Noah uneasy. Who the hell tore a woman in two? If it was an animal, he'd have to talk to Tom Ridgway at Park Services and Don Wells, the game warden who handled most of Beacon County. If it was human, then he had a murderer on his hands, and a sick one.

They needed to find the rest of the body.

~~~

**Text to: Scott**

R U OK?

**Sent: 11.36.16 pm pst**

**Text to: Scott:** Sorry. No way to come back without Dad guessing you were there too.

**Sent: 11.38.00 pm pst**

**Text to: Stiles**

I'm OK.

**Sent: 11.44.18 pm pst**

**Text to: Stiles**

Can U give me a ride tmrw?

**Sent: 11.45.06 pm pst**

**Text to: Scott**

Your chariot will await. TTYL.

**Sent: 11.46.28 pm pst**

**~~~August 28, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

"Something bit you? Dude, no way."

"Right after I was run down by a bunch of deer, tripped on a stump, and fell down on the body," Scott said.

Stiles gaped at him. "No way."

Scott nodded frantically. "Then this huge dog thing came out and bit me." He pointed to his side. "Right here."

"Dude, you should have gone to the E/D."

"Then my mom would find out! I couldn't. I bandaged it up myself."

"Listen, I'm not putting you down if you go all Ol' Yeller on me."

"What?"

"What if whatever bit you has rabies?" Stiles demanded. "Scottie, foaming at the mouth is not a good look on anyone."

He grabbed Scott's shirt and pulled it up to look at his side. Scott had a surgical dressing taped over his flank. Stiles started to pick it loose. Scott slapped at him.

"Quit it!"

"Dude, I want to see! Is it all gross? Are there, like, teeth marks? Maybe I can tell what bit you!"

"There's no teeth marks, it tore a piece out," Scott said.

Stiles looked up, his fingers still on the tape. "Scott, that's serious."

"It'll be okay. It stopped bleeding before I got home last night."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not really – "

"Then I'm looking at it," Stiles declared and pulled the tape away.

Underneath was only smooth, olive-toned skin.

Stiles punched Scott.

"Hey! What?"

"You jerk! There's nothing there!"

Scott peeled the dressing away entirely and peered at his own side. "I swear. It bit me."

"And now it's all healed up?" Stiles asked skeptically. He picked up the dressing and paused. The used dressing did have a heavy blood stain that had darkened to brown as it dried. "Dude…"

"That's weird. I swear I'm not punking you."

"Not to get back at me for making you walk from the Preserve all the way home in the middle of the night?"

He'd deserve it if Scott was pissed. But nothing had kept Scott from admitting he was with Stiles when Stiles' dad ran across them in the woods. Nothing except fear of his mother's wrath, that is. Melissa McCall could be scarier than the sheriff.

"No."

"Huh." Another thought popped up on Stiles' radar. "Wait, you fell down on the missing body?"

Scott shuddered. "Yeah."

"Was it gross?"

"Stiles, I was freaking out. It was dark. I don't know."

"You didn't, like, recognize her?"

"No!"

"That would have cool. Horrible, but – " Scott's glare made him shut up.

"I thought I was going to die."

"But you didn't." Stiles clapped him on the shoulder. "And I'm glad."

"Yeah, who would eat lunch with you without me?" Scott replied.

They sighed in unison.

"Dad's still trying to identify who it is… Wait, you know where the body is? The rest of her? My dad's still looking."

"Didn't you get into enough trouble last night?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, but – " Stiles made a face. "He'd be happy if we showed him where she is."

"I don't know exactly where it was."

"But you could find it?"

"Maybe. I don't really want to. What if the dog thing is out there? What if it's what killed her?"

"What if it's eating her?" Stiles said gleefully, because that would be so disgusting and wild.

"I'm going to puke."

Stiles patted Scott's back. "Don't puke, dude. Where's your inhaler?"

Scott patted his pockets and then groaned. "I think I lost it in the woods last night. Mom's going to kill me. Those things are expensive."

"Okay, now we have to go back out there," Stiles told him. "You just have to tough it out through today and we'll go after school."

"There's lacrosse try-outs. I'm going to make the team this year."

"Sure, you are, buddy. You and me both. Popularity, here we come. We'll go after the try-outs," Stiles said. He figured with Scott's asthma and his own lack of athleticism that they'd both be sent packing early on. But he wasn't ready to crush his friend's dream just yet.

"Did you check out the new girl?" Stiles asked. "She's a klutz, but really pretty."

"Allison's beautiful and she's not a klutz," Scott snapped at him.

"Whoa, dude." Stiles held up his hands. "I was talking about Kira. Her dad's the new American History teacher?"

"Oh, her. You know, if I make it on the team, maybe Allison will go out with me. I did give her a pen.

"Wow, so much enthusiasm. She seemed really nice. So did Allison. And I gave you that pen."

"You can date Kira."

"You know my heart belongs to Lydia Martin and will never stray."

Scott surprised everyone and Stiles surprised himself when they both made the team.

Afterward, Stiles drove them out to the Preserve while trying to figure out what had happened to Scott.

That was how they met Derek Hale for the first time. Scott took an immediate dislike to him. Stiles thought he was sketchy, but they were trespassing, and Derek did give Scott his inhaler back.

He'd just been joking, but that was when Stiles figured out Scott was a werewolf too.

Not longer after that, they figured out Derek was a werewolf too, Scott lost his mind over the new girl, Allison Argent, and everything went crazy.

**~~~August 29, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

Someone had brushed Peter's hair this morning. They shaved him too. Dressed him in pajamas and a robe, moved him into a wheel chair, oriented it so his unseeing eyes would face the window. The view wasn't much: a parking lot dotted with landscaping trees that would never be much more than saplings, the white-walled bulk of the hospital, the dark horizon of the forest beyond and the pale line of the sky above. There was movement though; cars, people, tossing leaves, constant birds and the occasional house cat slinking its way from here to there, a reminder of the hunt that was life beyond the antiseptic cocoon of the long-term care facility.

Peter's hair was longer than he'd kept it by preference. The burn scars rippled like melted plastic down the side of his face and neck, disappearing beneath pale blue cotton. They were there, though, over most of Peter's body. Derek remembered the one time he'd been allowed to visit the ICU before he and Laura fled Beacon Hills.

Derek swallowed a whimper of pain just looking him.

"I'm here," he murmured. "Uncle Peter. I'm here. I know it's been too long. We shouldn't have left you."

The room had a visitor's chair Derek imagined had never been used. He picked it up and set it in front of Peter, so he could sit level with him. Peter's gaze never flickered; his heart's pace never ticked quicker or slower. Derek scooted the chair close enough he could take Peter's hands in his. He cupped them both, scarred and unscarred, hoping the contact with someone who was pack might stir something in Peter. If it couldn't, then at least Peter wouldn't think Derek was repelled by the scars.

He wasn't; he only recoiled at the evidence of the pain Peter had endured.

"We couldn't stay," Derek said. "The hunters would have killed us both. Laura thought you'd heal, that you'd catch up with us. You knew the plans, the places we were supposed to go."

He ducked his head and looked at Peter's hand in his.

"We did, you know, we tried to do what mom told us to do," he explained softly. They had. Laura had dug up the cache of IDs and cash under a boulder two towns over. There had been instructions too, where they should go, the people who should have taken them in and helped them.

None had. Either they didn't want a half-trained, underage alpha and her equally underage, traumatized beta in their territory or they were terrified hunters were after the last of the Hales, or they figured favors owed and loyalty to Talia Hale died with her.

It wasn't technically true that everyone with Hale blood had died in the fire. Hales had married into other packs, other pack's betas had joined their pack. But when every pack, whether kith or kin, turned them away, Laura and he agreed they weren't family any longer. The only Hales left were the two of them and Peter.

So they'd kept running, off the grid and off the radar, until they were at least legal adults, and then made it to the neutral territory of New York.

"We only had the money from the bug-out cache, we were both still minors, and no one would take us in."

He squeezed Peter's hands. They were warm, nearly feverish compared to a human's temperature. Derek wondered if the doctors and nurses had noticed Peter's constantly higher temperature and blamed it on the burns.

"The estate's all tied up and a mess," he told Peter. "You'd be pissed if you were awake. Without the money, Laura couldn't have you moved to New York… " That was what she'd said when Derek suggested it. "You seemed safe here. Laura thought moving you might draw attention to you."

And she'd been merciless as she explained that if Peter was going to recover at all, it would have happened already. _Moving him won't help him, Derek. It'll just bring hunters to our door. He's safer there; they won't touch their bait._ They had had to be pragmatic if any Hales were going to survive. Peter couldn't help them, so they couldn't help him.

It had sounded entirely too much like the line the pack's so-called allies and friends had fed them to Derek, but Laura was the alpha.

"I'm glad they look after you here," Derek told him. He didn't like the place; it inevitably smelled of illness, chemicals, and death. But it was also clean, even to werewolf standards, maintained, and someone was making sure Peter's body was exercised enough he hadn't withered into a bed-bound invalid. That meant six years of physical therapy, along with keeping him bathed, clothed, and fed enough he hadn't dropped much weight. However the estate was being manipulated, it wasn't at the expense of Peter's care.

It wouldn't be, of course. If Peter died, then everything reverted to Laura and Derek, who were alive and of age. If someone was embezzling or defrauding, then they wanted Peter to stay healthy and catatonic.

Laura's return and interest disturbed the status quo, but Derek knew it wasn't greed that got her killed, no matter how much someone was profiting from keeping their inheritance from them.

"Laura's dead," he whispered. "She came back. Another wolf killed her. There's no Hale alpha now; it didn't come to me."

He bent and pressed his forehead to their clasped hands. Tears dripped from his eyelashes to the Formica floor.

"I didn't want, I don't deserve it," Derek went on, "but I will find whoever killed her. I'll do what has to be done. Mom would say it was our responsibility, right? Stop any rogue alphas." He choked on a sob, imagining what she'd think if she could see what had happened. He'd destroyed them all by following his fifteen-year-old dick straight into Kate Argent's arms. He could never forgive himself for what she did; he could never ask anyone to forgive him.

But now he had two goals to keep him going.

"There are hunters here now, too. They cut her in half, Uncle Peter." Fury rose up at the memory. "I found, I found _half_ of her." He swallowed hard. "I buried her according to tradition, under the wolfsbane. But it's not enough." The police had Laura's other half. "It's not enough. He left her there for the hunters to mutilate."

He wanted to kill whoever had done that too. He did, but the alpha came first. Killing hunters always came at a cost that was too high or he would have found Kate already and torn her black heart still beating from her chest.

"I have to stop him, Uncle Peter." He cleared his throat. Sat up and dashed any remaining moisture from his eyes with the heel of one hand. "He's already bit one idiot kid. I need to keep this McCall kid from making a mess and getting himself or anyone else killed. And I have to stop the alpha."

There was only one way to stop a rogue alpha.

Derek didn't look forward to it. Werewolves might be apex predators, but he'd never enjoyed killing. Not for the sake of it. The chase, stretching himself and his abilities under the moon's approving eye, proving himself to the rest of the pack for his place, yes. Providing for himself and the others when he brought down a buck and ate the rich flesh until his hunger was sated satisfied his deepest instincts. But not the fear and panic, not the pain if the kill wasn't clean; all of that just left Derek sad. Fear didn't excite him. He didn't enjoy causing pain.

He would kill the alpha because it was the best solution. It would free Scott McCall from being part of a sick pack and give him a chance, even if he was an omega. He wouldn't be a target and wouldn't be compelled to kill and warped into someone alien to himself. There would be no more innocents bitten, turned against their will. Derek was still a Hale; he would build a Hale pack so they could go on, lead it until someone better rose to take over as alpha.

His stomach twisted at how many years that would take, at the thought of finding someone to have children with, the responsibility looming like a concrete tomb when all Derek wanted to do was run and never stop.

"It was all my fault," he whispered. "Everything. God, I was so stupid."

Head bowed, he told his unmoving, unseeing, unhearing uncle everything, from the first time Kate flirted to him to the day she took his virginity in the swim team coach's office, one closed door away from discovery, and how he covered the scent with the reek of chlorine from practice at the pool.

From the perspective of six years later and desperate, heartsick reading in a dozen college libraries while Laura did everything but whore herself to support them, he detailed how Kate Argent crawled in his head when he was at his most vulnerable. How she had warped what should have been joyful, convinced him he was supposed to want and like things that turned his stomach, and pumped him for information on their family without him ever realizing.

"Everyone died because of me. I didn't even know her real name until afterward."

Derek glared out the window, then mustered the determination to face Peter. "I know you can't hear me, but you deserve to know."

He drew in a long breath.

"It was Kate Argent."

He settled Peter's hands on his lap, stood, and then bent to kiss Peter's temple. "I can't make up for it, but I'll find who killed Laura. I'll do what I have to." Tears prickled at his eyes again. "You won't be the last Hale. I won't leave you behind again."

He left the room and ignored the glare from one of the nurses.

That had been agonizing.

The paper pinned under the wipers and fluttering in the autumn breeze caught Derek's attention before he reached his car.

It was likely just a flyer, but when he looked around, no other car had one. Derek shrugged his jacket tighter and approached cautiously. He couldn't hear or smell anything out of the ordinary.

He snatched the paper and read it.

 _Leave Beacon Hills_.

Derek glanced around, but there was no sign of who had left it or clue why. It wasn't even a proper threat.

Angrily, he shoved it in his pocket and unlocked the Camaro.

He wanted nothing more than to leave Beacon Hills, but he couldn't, and no one was going to make him.

**~~~August 31, 2012~~~**

**Full Red Moon**

The fresh dirt had sunk down maybe an inch, the way refilled holes always did. It made no sense, when all the dirt went back (and probably something else too) into the hole it came from, but in Stiles (limited) experience, filled in holes always sank. Maybe it was the rain, turning the dirt to mud, making it heavier, making it pack down. Maybe it was the unwritten law of the universe that something changed could never be restored exactly as it had been.

Scott looked at Stiles and Stiles stared back, because what the fuck B-movie horror nonsense was this?

"It's a grave," Stiles said when Scott didn't speak despite being the one to insist on snooping around the Hale house.

Stiles didn't know how he felt about any of it. He had been having strong misgivings since the night he took Scott into the woods. He'd been manic on too much sugar and caffeine and boredom and worry over his dad and the idea of a body had been like something from a video game. It hadn't been real to him and he felt ashamed of that the next morning.

Somehow looking at what had to be a grave felt worse than going to look for a body. Maybe because he couldn't help thinking of his mother's grave. How he'd feel if someone dug her up. How horribly disrespectful of her it would be, what she'd feel if she could know.

He didn't want to dig up the grave.

"I'm telling you I can smell something dead," Scott insisted.

"So?"

"Derek killed her. He probably found my inhaler when he came back for the body – "

"Why would he give it back if he did?"

" – so he could hide it."

"You think he bit you too?" Stiles snarked.

"Maybe. What else was he doing out there?"

"I don't know, maybe looking for her too? Considering it's his land, like this is his backyard?" Stiles wrapped his arms around himself and rocked on his heels uncomfortably. It was getting darker. If Derek Hale was really staying out here in the ruins of his family's house, he might show up at any time. And if he had killed that woman and buried part of her here, Stiles did not want to run into him, even if he had Scott with him. Hale had looked like he could snap them both like toothpicks.

"Just help me dig," Scott insisted.

Reluctantly, Stiles did because that was what friends did. They helped you unbury bodies. No, wait, real friends helped you bury bodies. And while Stiles would absolutely help Scott bury a body – say Scott's douchebag dad – somehow Stiles didn't think digging up Derek Hale's family cemetery was a great idea. But Scott was sure the dead woman from the Preserve was here and that Derek Hale had killed her. Scott really had it in for Derek, especially since they'd learned Derek was a werewolf too. He was sure Derek was the one who had bitten him.

Stiles had his doubts.

Stiles didn't know what to make of the rope with the wilted blue flowers braided into it that came up first. It was laid down in a spiral and at the center there was half a body all right, but it wasn't a woman.

"That's a dog," Stiles pointed out. He wasn't sure if that wasn't even creepier than if it had been a woman. He was relieved though. Maybe Derek had found it or hit it with his car and buried it because he was sorry. That wasn't so bad.

Scott shook his head. "It's not a dog. I think it's a wolf."

"No wolves to speak of in California, except zoos, dude." Stiles knew his habit of always qualifying any statement, contradicting any statement with irrelevant tangents drove everyone crazy. He just couldn't help himself. If he didn't point out the exceptions to things, he felt like he was lying. "Anyway, it's totally not illegal, if slightly weird, to bury dogs or wolves in your family's cemetery. Let's get out of here."

Scott shook his head. "Look, it's only half of it."

Creepier and creepier. Stiles had a bad feeling. They should just fill in the hole again and go home.

Scott picked up the rope and hissed, dropping it. He stared at his palms.

"What?" demanded Stiles.

"That burned."

"What, the rope?" Stiles bent and picked up the rope. It was prickly, and dirty, and a little slimy from the rotting flowers, but it didn't burn. He gave it an absent jerk and the rope came out of the spiral like a released spring. It ended up in a heap at his feet. "That was weird."

Scott caught his shoulder and yelped, "Stiles, look!"

Stiles looked and stumbled back.

The half wolf had become a half woman.

"Oh shit." He tripped over his shovel scrambling back from the grave. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was – how did that happen? One minute a wolf, then a woman? That was some fucked up magical shit.

Scott back away too, then tripped over the shovel and screamed when Stiles caught his shoulder. Scott was breathing hard, like he might have an asthma attack, even though being a werewolf seemed to have fixed that for him.

"Oh God."

Stiles picked up the shovel and clutched it. For all he knew, the woman was going to crawl out of the grave next, moaning for brains. He wanted to be prepared if his life was going to turn into a zombie movie next.

"I'm going to be sick," Scott blurted.

"No puking, dude! My dad hates it when people puke on the scene!"

"How are you so calm?" Scott demanded.

Stiles shook his head. He wasn't calm. Not inside. He was just fronting. He crept back to the edge of the grave and peered down. She didn't look threatening. She looked… dead. Sad. The only eye he could see looked accusing.

She looked like all the crime scene photos Stiles had snuck looks at from his dad's files.

"She can't hurt us," he said finally. Looking at her now, Stiles just felt bad. They hadn't come here to help this poor person that got killed and cut in two and left in the woods and then buried in the back yard of a burned-out house by some weirdo. They were out here because Scott was mad at Derek Hale. That was shitty.

"Come on, we've got to get out here," Scott yelled.

Stiles agreed completely.

They called the police after a half an hour of arguing over it and tipped them off to the body buried at the Hale house and the guy who must have killed her hiding there.

**~~~September 2. 2012~~~**

**Waning Full Moon**

"Interview with Derek Hale. September 2, 2011. Sheriff Noah Stilinski interviewing." Noah added the case file number. He adjusted the video camera. He wanted to be able to go back and study Hale's face when they were done, and the crappy black-and-white CCTV set up in the ceiling corner just wouldn't do the job. The video camera was obvious, but they cuffed Hale and drove him to the station in the cage of a cruiser, so there was little point in trying to lull him into thinking he wasn't the prime suspect in that poor woman's death.

"I'm going to go ahead and read you your rights again, so it's on record," he said. He did so and finished, "Do you understand these rights as I have given them to you?"

Hale's pale eyes flickered to the camera then back to Noah. He hadn't said a word when Noah and Findlay took him into custody and stayed as silent during the drive back to the station. Noah thought he might have said something to Stiles, before Noah dragged his pain-in-the-ass son out of the cruiser. He'd been leaning forward, if not speaking then certainly listening to whatever bravado-laced accusations Stiles spouted.

God, that kid. Noah had to start coming down on him harder. He and Scott weren't the damned Hardy Boys. They shouldn't have been out on the Hale property, screwing around that sad ruin of a house either. It was disrespectful, but then, they were teenagers. They didn't think much beyond themselves.

They hadn't even had an ID on Hale when they rolled into the Preserve and up to the remains of the house. They got it from checking the registration on the Camaro sitting out front and Hale's wallet when they went through everything on him at the station. Noah had suspected he was a Hale as soon as he saw him, though. The Hales hadn't all looked alike, though they ran to dark hair and pale skin, but there was something indefinable yet distinct about them all. There was no mistaking a Hale. Maybe it was how still they could be, how watchful, something indefinably other about them.

It was a damn shame what happened to that family though, but Noah had no way of knowing what sort of person Hale had become.

He wanted to ask where Hale and his sister had gone, if they'd been safe, hoped they had had a chance to be happy again.

Looking at that still, wary face, he knew he wouldn't get any answers he liked, if Hale did open his mouth.

Tara had taken over booking Hale and bringing him into the interrogation room. She'd left him cuffed. Noah could see the cuffs cutting deep into Hale's wrist. Tara didn't usually do that unless a prisoner set off her instinct for danger.

It wasn't size. Hale stood around six feet tall. Plenty of Noah's deputies were taller. Hell, despite the muscle Noah saw in the young man's shoulders and arms, Logan and Bungalon were both gym rats and bigger. Hale was just a fit young man in black jeans and gray Henley that stretched tight over his shoulders. Noah could see the sharp line of a collarbone and the knob on the kid's wrist, too prominent, like he hadn't eaten in days. He shouldn't have been intimidating, but he was.

Noah got it though, what Tara sensed. Sitting wordlessly and cuffed, Hale radiated something that put up the hairs at the back of neck. Maybe it was how still he was. Most people couldn't help fidgeting, touching, twitching, yawning, stretching. Hale sat motionless and it translated as emotionless.

The lack of movement was disconcerting. His quiet was more so. Most people were deeply uncomfortable with silence when they were alone and even more with someone in a room with them. They'd start talking, asking questions, just to fill the expectant quiet.

"Please indicate a yes or no," Noah directed Hale.

"I understand," Hale said and Noah bristled, because he made it sound like an indulgence. "I have the right to remain silent." He stared straight at the camera. He had a light, husky voice. A young voice, not the hoarse growl Noah had expected to go with the fierce eyebrows and aquiline nose. "I am going to exercise it."

Fucking hell. Noah almost wished Hale had asked for a lawyer. Sometimes what the lawyers objected to told him a lot about what the suspect wasn't telling them.

Normally, he'd feel confident he could chip away at even a recalcitrant suspect, hammer away with questions and accusations and insults, until he broke their self-restraint. He wasn't so sure he could break down Hale.

Noah let out a gusty sigh. This was going to be long and frustrating. "Come on, kid. Help yourself out here. Tell me what you were doing out there. What happened?"

_Why'd you gut a woman, cut her throat, the chop her in two, only to bury half of her?_

Probably not the way to get him to open up, even if it was the question running through Noah's head.

Hale raised his eyebrows at Noah.

It went like that for an hour. Noah's ass was tired from the hard, plastic chair. He wasn't getting anywhere. Hale just sat there. He didn't even jiggle the hand cuffs.

The knock and Tara poking her head inside the room came as a relief. "We've got a preliminary ID on the body."

Noah got up, stifled a groan at how stiff he was. Definitely not getting any younger and his back knew it. He wanted a cup of coffee and something sugary. Stiles might bitch at him over his diet choices, but Noah was a grown damn man. Like the kid wasn't a junk food garbage disposal, even if his teenager metabolism meant the calories burnt up instead of going to his waist line like Noah.

It made him think about how Hale's bones were just too close to the skin. They'd picked him up in the morning and Noah hadn't seen any signs of food in the house or the car. He checked the clock. Well past noon now and they hadn't offered Hale any water either.

Tara was staring at him and then Hale and back, which meant the ID was important.

"You can tell me while I get coffee," Noah said. "Hale, I'll have a deputy bring in a sandwich and water. Any allergies?"

Hale shook his head.

Outside the room, Noah waved over Findlay, who was practically snoring over his keyboard, instead of finishing his report. "Take him to the men's room. He hasn't resisted physically but stay on your toes."

"Hell, Sheriff, make him wait," Findlay complained. "Make him piss himself."

"Lovely," Tara muttered. She and Findlay clashed regularly.

"Humiliating as that might be for him," Noah said with no hint of humor, "I am not interested in sitting in a room that smells like piss while I question him. If you don't take him to the bathroom when he asks, you will be the one scrubbing the room and the holding cells – toilets included." Noah believed in punishment that fit the crime where the law didn't specify.

Findlay muttered and bitched but got up and headed to the interrogation room.

Noah headed for the break room, where there was coffee – thank God – and two bear claws in a box with SHERIFF sharpied on it. God love whoever thought of that. His deputies were possibly worse than his kid when it came wiping out food like a locust invasion, but just scared enough of the Sheriff to leave _his_ food alone.

"Who was she?" he asked Tara, who had followed him to the break room. He poured coffee into his mug and one for her as well.

"Laura Hale."

Noah didn't slosh hot coffee on his hand, but it was a near thing. "Aw, god damn."

"Yeah. We went through Hale's phone, found a ton of calls and texts to and from Laura, along with a couple to the Comfort Inn. I sent Vargas over. The clerk recognized the picture. She checked in on the 16st, never checked out. Hale had been calling to see if she was still staying there since the 20th, which is when the texts and calls from her stop."

"Anything more?"

"TOD is as firm as it's going to get. Five days ago, give or take twelve hours. The 20th."

Noah had lost his appetite for the bear claws. He offered the box to Tara. She shook her head. He drank his coffee instead, feeling the caffeine jolt so quickly that was probably what Stiles said was the placebo effect, and the beginning of the heartburn that was all too real.

"Find out where Hale was calling from and when he got to Beacon Hills."

"Clerk said Hale came in on the 22nd, asking about his sister and if anyone had seen her recently." Tara swirled her coffee. "He could have been building an alibi."

"Search his car, see what's in there," Noah said. Hale hadn't checked in to the Comfort Inn, or a motel, or the Beacon Inn. He'd been camped at the old house. That meant whatever he'd brought with him would be there or in his car.

He rubbed his thumb over the BCSD emblem on his mug.

"When's doc going to have a cause of death?" he asked.

"He was going to do the rest of the autopsy this afternoon. Maybe by five," Tara answered.

Noah grimaced and tried to ignore the acid burn behind his breast bone. Most of the time it didn't matter that Beacon County only had an old general practitioner who doubled as the coroner, but with a case like this, Noah really wished the county would spring for an actual, trained pathologist. Or, hell, if the old man would just retire, Noah could justify sending the body to the state and using their facilities.

"Have you got anything from him?" Tara asked.

Noah snorted. "He's exercising his right to remain silent. If he hadn't said so I'd be wondering if he was mute."

"Think he killed his sister?"

"Christ, Tara, that's – We need to just stick with the evidence." Because it was just a fucking tragedy, whether Hale had done it or not. The entire family destroyed.

"Going to go back in there?"

"Got to make sure Findlay doesn't try to waterboard him in the men's room," Noah said, only half joking.

He poured a second cup of coffee, looked at the bear claws and decided to take them in with him. Food made everyone relax, didn't it?

He started for the interrogation room, then stopped. He'd gone into the house with Findlay and handled Hale. He hadn't personally inspected the grave site. But he remembered the Hales had had an old family cemetery.

"Hey, Tara, I need to look at the file for a minute."

They walked out to her desk in the bullpen. As Noah had expected, Tara had the case file organized and up to date (sans only Noah and Findlay's own reports). Noah paged through and found what he'd half expected.

"Hale buried her in the family cemetery."

Tara raised her eyebrow at him. "If it was Hale who buried her there." Noah shrugged helplessly. He didn't know if it meant anything or not.

~~~

Stilinski had left the camera recording. The tiny red telltale light next to the lens stayed on. Derek could hear the hum of it anyway, not to mention that he was observant enough to notice Stilinski hadn't shut it off before leaving the room.

There had been a time when Derek would have made faces at it, just to be an ass. When he'd had a family, a life, a future. A cocky sense of entitlement to all those things and more, along with a stupid sense of humor. That was before though.

Laura said –

Laura didn't say anything anymore.

His hands were hidden from the camera and any other observation. He kept his face stoic and let his fingers curl. The memory of the dirt that worked its way under his nails and into his skin lingered. His palms had blistered and calloused and healed unmarked and whole in the course of digging Laura's grave.

His fingertips tingled from weaving the wolfsbane into the rope he'd ringed around the grave according to tradition. The feeling wasn't real. He had burned out any of the poison that his hands had absorbed.

It was a strange magic, the wolfsbane spiral. Werewolves couldn't work most magic. Most werewolves couldn't shift completely into a wolf either, even the oldest or most powerful. But a born werewolf buried with wolfsbane took the shape of the wolf.

They'd pulled up the rope along with digging up her grave and without it, Laura's body had become human again. They had taken even that away from her, along with her power and her life: her wolf.

He let his head dip, his eyelids fall half closed, afraid the anger that welled up when he thought of those stupid, careless teenagers uncovering her would give him away. He never let his eyes settle directly at the camera, even as he faced it or Stilinski. He knew better than to give himself away with a flash of murderous blue or the strange lens flare cameras recorded. Usually, when a werewolf knew they would be photographed, they donned glasses or clear contacts. Either foiled the effect.

The sheriff's deputy and Stilinski hadn't given him any chance to take that precaution.

Stilinski was talking to one of the deputies. Derek flexed his fingers open. The anger wasn't gone; the anger was his heart beat, the pulse of his blood through his body. It kept him alive and in control. But it receded for the moment, fuel for another fire.

He'd been forged in fire, Derek thought, like a badly tempered blade, heated too fast. He felt brittle. Flawed. How could he find Laura's killer when he was so much less than she'd been?

She'd been cut in two. He'd smelled the teenager near where he found her, smelled lingering terror, blood, and an alpha who wasn't his sister. Laura's alpha power would have come to Derek if she'd been killed by a hunter. One had been there though, later, and had desecrated her body worse than the werewolf who killed her.

Maybe they were working together, though what werewolf would betray themselves and their kind like that? Derek sneered at himself. Some stupid fool following his dick around, like Derek had.

It didn't matter why the werewolf had done it. They were an alpha now. Stronger than Derek, devious, dangerous. Whoever it was had already bitten one person – that stupid boy. The one with the inhaler for asthma. Scott McCall. McCall wouldn't need it any longer. The new alpha wanted to build a pack. Derek's tie to Laura hadn't shifted with the power, though he didn't feel like an omega.

Falling to omega could take time though.

Time enough for Derek to find the alpha and kill whoever it was for taking Laura's life, even if he died doing so. He didn't care much if he died, he just didn't want to give any hunter the satisfaction.

**~~~September 3, 2012~~~**

**Waning Full Moon**

Noah looked at the report that had come back from his tiny (one trained deputy, one tech analyst) crime scene unit along with Doc's ruling on Laura Hale's manner of death.

"Well, sonovabitch," he muttered.

Wolf hair and an animal attack. It was a crock of phooey. Not that he doubted DeShaun and Olafsson. But Doc was just plain incompetent these days. He couldn't tell a hack mark from a saw mark from a tear, especially after decomposition and insects had done their damage. There just wasn't anything Noah could do; they needed a competent pathologist, but ousting Doc from his job would be as hard as getting rid of Noah before the next election.

Death by Misadventure, Animal Attack.

He supposed an animal could have torn Laura Hale apart and carried half of her to that jogging path.

Humans were animals, after all.

He slapped the file closed and left it on his desk. He'd go get Hale out himself. God knows he had enough paperwork, he could bury himself in it and let someone else process the kid out, but Noah felt an obligation to say something before waving him out the door.

There was the matter of Laura's remains too and having them dealt with according to the laws of the state and county. If Hale really wanted her in the old family cemetery, he would need an attorney to help him get through the legal rigamarole.

Tara was on her way to him, he saw.

"What now?" he asked with a smile, because she didn't look upset, so he could probably rule out Stiles running over Whittemore's kid or vice versa. Who the hell bought their sixteen-year-old a Porsche? Kids needed junkers they'd have to work to keep running so they could appreciate a decent car when they had to buy it themselves.

"We went through Hale's car the way you said to," Tara said. "Found a speeding ticket. He was stopped in Pennsylvania at 6: 40 am the morning of August 20. Paid the fine with his credit card. I called the trooper that wrote the ticket to make sure it was Hale driving – he remembered the car. The stop is on dash cam too. He confirmed it was Hale driving. Said he was quiet and polite and didn't protest the fine."

"Good work. I feel better now."

"Because?"

"Because we're releasing him. Doc came in with a finding of Death by Misadventure. The DA's office might want to fine him for burying her – improper disposal of human remains – but I doubt he'll waste his time on it."

"Oh." Tara lowered her voice. "You really think an animal killed her?"

Noah sighed. "I haven't got much choice about it. At least I know I'm not setting a killer free, thanks to you."

He'd learned to read Tara over the years. She didn't blush as visibly as Stiles did, but Noah could tell he'd prompted the good embarrassment that made a person's face go hot and happy.

It didn't take a lot of effort to tell his people they'd done well when they went the extra mile or just did their jobs extra well. Sure, it was what they were paid for, but a little acknowledgment of the effort they put in made up for their less than hefty pay checks. In five years, half the youngsters he had on the payroll would move on to bigger, better paying departments and that was okay. He'd miss some of them. Some he'd be happy to see go for whatever reason. But let them stretch their wings with the assurance that they had a grounding in grass roots police work. And in ten, okay, twenty years, Noah would be happy to support Tara running for his office.

He left Tara collating the additional information into the Laura Hale file, found Bungalon and told him to get Hale's belongings, such as they were, and put them in his office, then get Hale's car out of impound and bring it around to the front of the station. They'd brought the vehicle in, but Noah considered it dishonest to make Hale pay to get it out of impound when it hadn't been on public land or involved in any crime. It was the sort of petty shit that gave police a bad name; they were supposed to be taking care of people not screwing them over.

He headed back to holding. No one else had been booked in overnight, so at least Hale had had a quiet night.

Hale was standing at alert in front of the cell door. His clothes were wrinkled, and his hair ruffled. He needed a shave; the kid had a heavy scruff going after just one day.

Noah unlocked the door. "Come on then."

"What, no handcuffs?" Hale asked sardonically.

"No handcuffs," Noah told him, willing to cut him some slack under the circumstances. His tone said he would only give so much, though. Still, Hale's night in lock up had shaken a few words loose, even if they were snarky. Noah was immune to sass, though.

Hale followed Noah back to his office, where Noah handed over the manila envelope with his belongings and a form confirming they were all there.

"Car keys?"

"My deputy is bringing the car around," Noah said. He gestured to the visitor's chair and seated himself in his.

Hale eyed him warily before sitting.

Noah set his fingers on the file in front of him. "The coroner's finding on your sister's death came back this morning. The autopsy found indications of an animal attack. He's found it to be a Death By Misadventure. "

Hale shut down even further if that were possible. Noah watched him curl one hand into a white-knuckled fist then open it in a slow, deliberate movement. It was the only hint of emotion Hale gave away. He thought the emotion was anger and Noah would bet even letting him see that much was by choice.

"We'd be releasing you even if this – " Noah tapped the folder with the report, " – had come back as murder. Why didn't you tell us you had an alibi?"

Hale rolled his shoulders. "Didn't know I had one."

"You were in New York when your sister died. And picked up a speeding ticket in Pennsylvania the next day, which would clear you if you needed it."

Hale blinked at that. "I'd forgotten that," he admitted. "So, I'm free to go?"

"In a minute. The DA may decide to charge you with improper disposal of a body. Can't say you interfered with a crime scene, since there was no crime. Under the circumstances though, he may not; it wouldn't look good if it made the paper. Get a lawyer anyway, and a PO box for the paperwork. Once a death certificate has been issued, we'll be able to release your sister's body to a funeral home of your choice."

Noah had an envelope with the cards for two local businesses, one in Hill Valley, and even one in Redding, along with a hand-out sheet explaining what would need to be done, the fees necessary – death certificates weren't free – and the names of a couple of pastors, a good grief counsellor and a rabbi.

He'd discovered after Claudia's death just how much needed to be done in the aftermath and how hard it was to handle everything alone. He'd had his fellow officers and Melissa to help him at least. Hale had no one.

When he was sworn in as Sheriff, after his first notification of death, he'd started making up the packets. The Sheriff's Department was called in for all unattended deaths and ended up interacting with the families and loved ones when people died. Noah threw in pamphlets, flyers, business cards, the location and schedule for AlAnon and NarcAnon meetings, a daycare center that would take temp placements, a general practitioner Melissa recommended, florists, the number for the newspaper if someone wanted to pay for an extensive obituary, house cleaners, movers, the local vet, and all three of Beacon Hills hotels and the one decent motel.

He hoped Hale would avail himself of one of the hotels at the very least. Camping out in the preserve couldn't be good for him.

He pushed the envelope over. "There are some useful tips in here."

Hale glared at the envelope balefully but accepted it with a grunt. Noah didn't take it personally. Grief wrecked everyone differently. He'd had people cry themselves sick, throw things, hide, and puke on him. No one liked the bearer of bad news. Even if they didn't shoot the messenger, the police were forever a painful reminder of loss. Factor in that Noah had the ultimate authority in Hale's arrest, the handcuffs, the accusation, and his night in jail and of course Hale wouldn't appreciate much coming from Noah or the department.

"Hale," Noah said quietly. "Derek. I am very sorry that your sister is dead. It must be hell for you. Please understand that I wasn't trying to persecute you. I was trying to do the only service I could for someone who was dead."

"But it was an 'animal attack'," Hale spat.

"If Laura had been murdered, wouldn't you want who did it caught?"

Hale drew in a heaving breath. "I would," he gritted out.

Bungalon knocked on the glass in the closed door to the office. The blinds that gave Noah's office privacy were open enough he could make out the big deputy. Noah waved him in.

He gave Hale a suspicious look before handing Noah the keys. "It's out front, Sheriff."

Noah thanked him and watched him leave, then handed over the keys. "Nice car." Black Camaro. Muscle car, but not as ridiculous as Jackson Whittemore's silver Porsche.

Hale tucked the keys in his front pocket without comment. "Can I go now?" he asked.

"Sure," Noah told him.

Hale opened the door, then paused before stepping out, his hand on the door knob and his back to Noah. "The kid yesterday? The one you pulled out of the car? He and his friend dug up my sister."

Noah decided not to identify Stiles as his son if Hale didn't know.

"He's your son."

Well. So much for not crossing the streams. Hale was an observant man. He'd probably seen Noah scolding Stiles from the cruiser or picked up something one of the deputies said.

"Yes."

"Keep him and his friend off Hale property." Hale half turned, enough he could see Noah at his desk. "I caught them in the Preserve, out where I found… I found Laura. Why don't you ask why they were out there? Why were they at the house? What right did they have to do that? To even be there?" He looked fully back. "They dug up my sister's grave like it was a _prank._ "

Noah felt sick thinking about it. It was too much like the drunken bastards that desecrated cemeteries for fun. Stiles and Scott had made a game of someone's death and showed no respect or regret over disturbing her body. They'd jumped to conclusions at best. At worst they'd pointed the sheriff's department at Hale out of spite because Hale called them out on trespassing. He thought he knew Stiles' faults, thought Scott was better than that, but he'd missed something somewhere, messed up somehow. Part of him was defensive and angry at being called out on that, but objectively he knew Hale was right.

If Laura Hale's death had been murder, then he should have looked longer and harder at why the boys were out there and how they found that grave. He told himself he would talk to Stiles about it.

Hale didn't wait for Noah to offer any answer. He marched out, through the bullpen to the lobby and out the front doors.

~~~

He'd made a point to get home before Stiles. He didn't violate Stiles' privacy by going through his room, but he gathered the towels from the bathroom and emptied his garbage can before doing a few more housekeeping chores. It wasn't fair to expect his son to go school and take care of the house all on his own. If he glanced at the books scattered on the floor and the computer desk, he didn't open them, right?

Noah snorted to himself. Stiles obviously had a new obsession and was deep in the research spiral. _Supernatural Creatures of Europe, Myth of Lycanthropy, The Beast of Gevauden_. Most parents would worry about their kid poking at occult stuff, but Noah knew Stiles was both incurably curious and too skeptical to buy into anything too crazy. The books were all academic after all. No how-to spell manuals and God knows that made him feel better, because he'd hammered into Stiles' stubborn head to stay away from drugs since his first Adderall prescription.

Downstairs, he started a load of laundry, set aside a uniform to take to the dry cleaner, and started dinner. He usually let Stiles handle the cooking, which resulted in eating sadly tasteless health food, so he indulged himself a little with a meatloaf made with real hamburger and not turkey, mashed potatoes and not riced cauliflower, and ranch dressing for the salad.

Stiles stomped inside in a tangle of backpack, over-shirt, and lacrosse gear, making Noah wince as he wacked the stick against the wall all the way up the stairs, rattling pictures the whole way.

"Stiles," he called as he came up the stairs. "Consider making two trips next time. I don't want to patch the walls. Again. Also, I want to talk to you."

"Um, sure. Shower first, though," Stiles answered, looking at him like a deer in the headlights. "And I have homework. So much homework. Maybe it could wait until the weekend? I mean, who knew making the team would mean so much more work, right?"

"You couldn't shower after practice?" Noah asked, but he didn't expect a sensible answer.

"Oh. Yeah, I should have done that." He'd swear it hadn't even occurred to the kid that that was what locker room showers were for.

"Dinner will be ready in half an hour."

"I told Scott I'd – "

"Tell Scott we're having dinner. If he'd like to come over, I have some things to say to him as well. But you – " Noah pointed his finger at Stiles, who was fish-mouthing him, " – will be sitting down at the dining table in half an hour and we will be having a discussion."

He set the table and spent the rest of the wait reading another memo from the county board of supervisors. Noah shook his head. He knew them all and they were good people, but not one of them understood law enforcement.

Stiles was aghast as soon as he saw dinner. "Dad! Red meat is bad for your cholesterol! Is that butter on those potatoes? Are you trying to give yourself a heart attack!?"

"No," Noah told him. He loaded up his plate. "I have you for that. And the doctor said less red meat, not become a vegetarian. I'm not a rabbit, Stiles, I need more than greens."

He watched smugly as Stiles filled his own plate with typical teenage enthusiasm. Stiles' efforts to dictate Noah's diet did not extend to following it himself.

Noah waited until he and Stiles were half way through their plates before beginning. He set his fork down and said, "I know you were the one to phone in the tip on Derek Hale."

"Whu – wha – how?" Stiles gabbled. His fork slapped down in his potatoes, sending butter splashing onto the table. This was why they didn't use the nice table cloths. "Dad!"

"You used your own phone, Stiles. All the calls into the station are logged. I recognized the number, I pay for that line. So did Tara. So would half the guys at the station."

Stiles gaped at him a second then tried to facepalm only to slap himself in the face with a chunk of meatloaf. He caught it with his fingers, shrugged and popped it into his mouth. It took an inordinately long time to chew, considering he usually swallowed half his food whole. Noah waited him out.

"I want to talk to you, and presumably your confederate dunce, about that, because I released Mr. Hale this morning. Laura Hale died of an animal attack – "

"No way!" Stiles exclaimed. Without swallowing first. Noah wondered if Claudia could have impressed the idea of not talking with his mouth full into Stiles if she'd lived. Since talking was Stiles' default mode, Noah comforted himself that it had likely been an impossible task. Though maybe he could mention that red-haired girl Stiles rhapsodized over would be more likely to show an interest back if he masticated with his mouth shut and showered after lacrosse practice…? Probably not though, the girl just wasn't interested in his son. Best to stick with manners.

He tried anyway. "Stiles. Swallow before you talk. Please."

Stiles protested immediately, mouth still full, "I don't – "

Noah gave him a flat look and he swallowed, possibly a little too soon given the way his Adam's apple worked up and down his throat getting the mouthful down.

"Listen to me now, Stiles, because this is a serious matter."

Stiles looked mulish but nodded.

"You are a high school student, not a cop. You are not an investigator. You are a minor. Your habit of going through my files is going to stop, if I have to stop bring anything home. I know you've gone on my work computer a few times. The password has been changed."

"Okay, but – "

"Stop. I'm not finished."

Stiles finally stilled and looked like he was listening instead of formulating an excuse or looking for a loop hole to wiggle through.

"Derek Hale was in New York when his sister died. He came here looking for her. You and Scott trespassed on his family's property at least twice, once after he had told you to leave. If Laura's death had been murder, your interference with the scene could easily have resulted in the person involved getting away or acquitted. Do you understand those things, Stiles?"

"He was in New York? But – but how do you know – "

Noah slammed his hand down on the table. "I know because I am the sheriff and a qualified investigator who can check an alibi. I had to sit there, because there was no excuse for your behavior, when he asked why you and Scott could dig up a grave and desecrate his sister's body. How you could treat looking for a dismembered body like entertainment and not like a person? If you aren't ashamed of that, son, then let me tell you, I am ashamed of you."

Stiles' eyes went glossy at that and he gasped like Noah had gutted him, but maybe that was what it took to get through to him.

"That girl's death was not a game. Derek Hale's grief is not funny. The Hale house is not a handy place for kids to hang out, getting high and screwing. Eleven people died in that fire; their ashes are still there. The only other family Hale has left is a catatonic in long-term care."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Stiles whispered. "I really thought – "

"Stop trying to do my job and start doing yours: which is school."

"Okay."

"Leave Hale alone and stay out of the Preserve. The poor kid has enough on his plate without an interfering teenager dogging him."

"Okay."

"I want more than okay, Stiles. Tell me you understand."

"I understand." Noah could hear the _You don't understand!_ Stiles wanted to whine. Hell, he'd said and thought it enough times as a teenager himself.

"Good," Noah said and started back on his meal. "You can explain it to Scott, so I don't have to talk to Melissa."

Stiles winced at that. Melissa had unofficially mothered him over the years, but there were days she had just had enough of him since the boys hit puberty. She'd likely felt just as done with Scott, but she couldn't forbid him from her house.

**~~~September 4, 2012~~~**

**Waning Moon**

The bell at the front door of the clinic jingled. The wards hadn't triggered though, so whoever it was, was no threat. Alan finished the last stitches on the gash on Mrs. Arnold's husky's muzzle. Holly was a Siberian Husky with more energy than the older woman could easily handle and regularly took off from her yard in search of excitement. It would have been more of problem, but Holly was sweet-tempered and wanted to play with anything and everything. Even a skunk that one time… It looked like she'd tangled with a bobcat this time.

No one else was scheduled to come in, but emergencies with pets were common. Alan listened curiously as Scott greeted Sheriff Stilinski a little cautiously. Ah, yes, his part-time help persisted in his friendship with the Stilinski boy, so he knew Stiles' father.

"He's in the treatment room," Scott said.

"I can wait," the Sheriff replied. "How's lacrosse going?"

"I made first line!"

"Good, that'll keep you busy instead of trespassing."

Alan let Holly jump off the treatment table and walked her back to the kennels. Mrs. Arnold would be by to pick her up before closing. He walked out to the front afterward and smiled serenely at the Sheriff. "Scott, could you clean up the treatment room?"

Scott was always happy to do anything Alan asked. It was gratifying. "I've got it. See you later, Sheriff." He loped toward the back, already more graceful than he'd been only a few weeks ago. Alan didn't let himself frown at the implications.

"Hello, Sheriff," he said.

Stilinski leaned against the counter, the picture of relaxed, but Alan didn't miss how sharp his blue eyes were or even that the man never blocked his ability to draw the sidearm he wore.

Alan had no quarrels with Stilinski. He'd voted for him in both elections. He ran an honest department unlike the previous sheriff and never threw his weight around without good reason. That didn't mean he welcomed the man showing up at his door. Though better the clinic than his home.

"What can I do for you?"

Please let it be one of the police dogs stepped on something sharp and needs it cleaned up. Or even some poor animal hit by a car. Just not another carcass with a spiral carved in it. That cut too close to home.

"You probably heard about the body found out in the Preserve."

He had. Alan kept up with anything to do with the Preserve and the ruins out there. He never went out there though so many of the wards that once repelled people were failing. He worked with the trees. It was a trade-off. The life of the tree kept the ward powered long after what Alan imbued it with faded, but trees grew and in time warped the runes past coherency. What was left were the works of practitioners before him who had worked in stone and water. But even stone wore away and water courses shifted and dried up thanks to the years of drought that afflicted Northern California.

"I did," Alan acknowledged. If he'd renewed the wards, he would know everything that happened in the Preserve. Instead, he read the newspaper and listened to local news stream over his phone while he worked.

"We've identified her."

Alan waited patiently for Stilinski to reveal why that brought him here.

"You remember the Hales."

It cost him to keep his mask of calm from cracking. The door behind him, into the treatment rooms, creaked enough he guessed Scott was on the other side, listening. He needed to be careful what he said to Stilinski; he suspected young McCall's eyes had been opened to the shadowed side of Beacon Hills.

A sinking feeling hit Alan. "Of course. Talia co-signed the loan when I built this clinic." She had done more than that. Technically the building belonged to the Hale estate at this point. Talia had never needed or asked him to pay it off, because their relationship had been so much more. It could have been even more than it was, if she'd looked at him as more than friend and emissary. The old bitterness caught at the back of his throat.

She should have listened to him.

"Then you probably remember the oldest daughter, Laura."

"Yes." He paused delicately before asking, "Laura was the woman found?" He didn't want to say body. He remembered her as so intensely alive. As beautiful as her mother, but with temper that needed tempering. He hadn't seen her after the fire, though. He had no idea what she'd been like in the aftermath.

Unlucky, it seemed.

"She was torn apart by an animal according to the coroner."

Torn apart. Dear God. No mere animal did that. Laura would have inherited from her mother when Talia died. Talia had designated her, even if she hadn't been the eldest and strongest survivor. Alan breathed carefully, not letting his body spiral into fear, keeping his heart beat slow and steady.

Every inhalation calmed him. The front of the clinic smelled of cleaners. Scott had mopped and wiped everything down with disinfectant. Alan used unscented organics to keep from irritating any of the animals, but he imagined he could smell his herbs from the locked office and work room. Not the dust and vanilla scent of his books – he kept the valuable and dangerous editions in his house.

Laura had returned and something had killed her. Young McCall showed clear signs of a transformation – Alan was waiting for the proper opportunity to illuminate the boy. If Beacon Hills was becoming active again, he might have a second chance to shape the balance where he'd failed before.

He needed to renew the wards on his house. He'd grown complacent over the years.

He met the Sheriff's shrewd gaze. "Sounds like a bear."

"Not a mountain lion?"

Alan had told the Sheriff the deer carcass left in his parking lot had been killed by a mountain lion.

"It could be."

"Hmm."

Alan waited patiently. Stilinski had come for a reason. He'd get to it in his own time. Alan didn't want to seem too interested or too connected. Having that sharp intellect turned toward him could become inconvenient.

"Her brother is in town. Think he means to have her buried out at the family plot."

That would be proper – brother? Derek Hale? Alan had never liked Talia's son. Everyone else saw the obvious Hale traits. Alan saw the boy's father in him. Talia had laughed at him when he mentioned it. Then she'd lost the girl, before Coraline and the twins. Now Alan was likely the only one who remembered the truth. It was Talia's choices that had brought their enemies to the Hales' door, but she hadn't lived to know that.

Alan knew she'd made mistakes, Talia hadn't been perfect, but he still blamed Derek for the destruction of the pack. The boy was a reminder of Talia's error and his own failures.

He certainly wasn't any right to inherit her legacy.

Stilinski brought out his phone and tapped at the screen. "I was hoping you could look at the wounds and tell me what kind of animal killed Laura. She died too close to town. I need to get together with Fish & Wildlife, so it can be caught and relocated farther away." He held out the phone to Alan.

Laura Hale had looked so much like her mother. Even destroyed, washed clean by some morgue worker in the aftermath of forensic collection, the remnants of beauty lingered. Her eyes had been closed but Alan could see the image of them wide with horror laid over her features. He shuddered and pushed the phone away. "I'm a vet, not an expert in wild predator behavior. You should talk to a game warden."

"Just thought I'd check," Stilinski said amiably. He put away the phone. "Thanks for your help."

"I'm afraid I was none. But I can get you a discount on heartworm pills for your canine unit."

"That would be great."

Stilinski started for the door, but Alan didn't let himself relax. Stilinski turned back. The man had watched too many episodes of _Columbo_. "One last thing. Could a wolf have killed Laura?"

"There are no wild wolves in California," Alan replied smoothly. "Contrary to European myth, even in packs they're shy of humans. Mountain lions will attack people more often; there are many documented incidents."

"A wolf wouldn't do that even if it was starving?"

"If it was starving, wouldn't it have eaten her?" Alan countered. "Mountain lions, however, are known to cache their kills." He decided to add something more in the hope it would keep people out of the Preserve. "Even so, the behavior is out of the norm. It may be rabid."

There, that alarmed Stilinski. Good.

"I'd be very careful out there or if any of your people encounter any animals acting unnaturally."

"I'll mention it to my people."

Stilinski finally left.

Alan realized he should have asked why Stilinski thought it might be a wolf, but he'd been too intent on dismissing the possibility.

~~~

Wolf hairs on Laura Hale's body. Olafsson identified them. DeShaun had thought they were from a dog, like that big white husky that bounced around town.

Just another bizarre element to Laura Hale's death, even if it wasn't murder.

Noah had stared at the pictures of the wounds on Laura's torso until he could see them with his eyes closed and they were so much like the ones on the animal carcasses people had been finding. Too much like.

So maybe there was a wild animal out there and it killed Laura. Predators killed to eat. None of the carcasses that showed up through August were consumed, not even partially.

It reminded Noah too much of another kind of progression. Bedwetting, fire-starting, animal torture and killing. The serial killer trifecta of indicators. Noah couldn't know about the first, but there had certainly been fire when the Hale house burned and no matter what Alan Deaton said about claw wounds drying up in distorted shapes, Noah knew deliberate marks when he saw them.

Why hadn't Deaton asked why Noah thought it might be a wolf? The man was too calm, too reticent. He bothered Noah even though he'd been an upstanding member of the community for the last twenty years. He wished he had any excuse to dig into the Deaton's background.

Scott thought the vet was great. Noah didn't know if he trusted Scott's character judgement, though. Maybe he thought Deaton was a good boss because he didn't make him work too hard.

Maybe Noah had been a cop so long he suspected everyone of hiding something. Like that addict doctor in that show Stiles had liked always said: everybody lies.

God knows his kid did, though not well and not maliciously.

He hoped he'd got through to Stiles with their little dinner table talk.

Wolf hairs, though. Where the hell had they come from?

It was probably something prosaic, like Olafsson said. She'd probably had a coat with wolf fur trim on the hood. Wolf fur didn't frost up.

Sure.

The animal that killed but didn't make a meal of her, instead it dragged half of her to a trail that reeked of hikers and joggers, and then it carried the coat off to make a bed of it wherever it had its den.

In tropical Siberia.

Noah had a strong instinct that there was something wrong with everything people were telling him to think about Laura Hale's death. The evidence didn't really fit. They were taking a square peg and shaving off the corners to make it fit instead of finding the square hole.

**~~~September 5, 2012~~~**

**Waning Moon**

The Dellalunas ran a winery in Napa Valley. The family had planted the first grapes on their land during the Gold Rush, around the same time Derek's Hale ancestor crossed the Sierra Nevada on four feet. There were larger packs in Southern California, but with the demise of the Hales, there were none older or more powerful in the state.

They held all the Napa Valley and had branches in Sacramento and San Francisco and as far north as Clear Lake.

Derek called for an appointment with their law firm in downtown San Francisco after he left the Sheriff's Department. The Dellaluna alpha was there when Derek walked in for his consultation. He hadn't expected that, though he'd used a few loaded words when he spoke with the firm's receptionist to alert them what he was.

Once he would have needed an emissary to negotiate his passage into or through another's pack's territory. Now he could simply stay in neutral public spaces, marking himself as a traveler, without ignoring etiquette.

"I recognized the name when Michael alerted me one of our kind wished to retain the firm's services," the alpha explained. "You're Talia's son." He studied Derek, breathing in all his scent communicated, then flashed his eyes red.

Derek flashed his own, refusing to hide the blue shine of them, then dipped his head in recognition of the Alpha's authority in his territory.

"Who is your alpha?" the alpha asked curiously.

"My sister was," Derek answered bitterly, "until a few days ago. She was killed. Whoever took her power, they are not _my_ alpha."

"What do you want from us?" Michael Dellaluna demanded before the Alpha held out his hand to silence him.

"Only to hire you as lawyers. The courts appointed a stranger to administer the estate. Laura and I received nothing, but I know the terms of our mother's will and we should have. Not to mention the trusts." Derek met the alpha's gaze and let his weariness show. "I'm not asking for Dellaluna protection or inviting you into Hale territory. But I need money if I'm going to hunt down the rogue who killed Laura."

"And if we decline?"

Derek gave Michael a flat look. "I hire some other firm. What do you think?"

The office was on the twentieth floor. It had a beautiful view of the bay. Sailboats scudded across the blue water, white gulls dipping and wheeling above them. The sound-proofing filtered out the sounds of the city below. Derek watched one boat with a rainbow sail tack back and forth. He'd never been sailing, preferred earth beneath his feet, though he'd been a star swimmer once.

The smell of chlorine nauseated him now, worse even than the scent of ash and burning.

"Michael," the Alpha said, "sic your best on whoever is interfering with the Hale estate. Take note how it was done so it never happens to us."

"Nothing like what happened to the Hales will happen to us," Michael declared.

The Alpha growled. "They were bigger and more powerful than us. If we survive and they didn't, it is because we are smart enough to be warier."

"Thank you," Derek said sincerely.

"Come back to Napa with us tonight," the alpha said. "I have matters I wish to discuss. You and your sister were in New York. I'd like to know more about pack interactions there from someone without an axe to grind."

Derek bowed his head in acceptance of the unexpected invitation.

~~~

The alpha's name was Vincente Bernstein.

"It's the blood line that matters, not the name," he mentioned over drinks on a patio overlooking the beautiful vista of vines lining the hills. Even the frost-browned leaves were lovely. The old vines were thick and twisted and strong under the setting winter sun.

The winery itself sat on a piece of land miles away from the house. Customers went there; visitors to the Dellaluna home were seldom welcomed.

It would be too chill outside for most people, but like Derek, the Dellalunas ran hot, and were nearly immune to the weather. California never got cold enough to hurt their kind. Neither did Alaska or Siberia. New York was the first place Derek ever noticed the cold and then it was only that he ahd needed to pretend he felt it.

The drinks were Dellaluna wine. The bottles had a sickle moon molded on the necks.

"Our little joke," Mrs. Bernstein – Marisol – commented when Derek traced the glass.

It was good wine, very good, and Derek could enjoy the taste even if he couldn't get drunk. He tentatively smiled at her. She was straight as a steel blade, eyes black, white hair in a thick braid down her back.

"There's a Hale in the family tree," Vincente said. "And a Dellaluna or two married into the Hale Pack." He was asking why Laura and Derek hadn't come to his pack for help when their family died.

"I don't think Laura knew, but it would have been too dangerous to come to you anyway," Derek answered. "We couldn't lead hunters to anyone else so close."

Marisol pressed her hand over Derek's forearm.

"You'll stay the night."

Dinner reminded him almost unbearably of his mother's dinner parties, the wonderful food and the elegant place settings, and the everyone at the table wolf kind. Scents of a home, beeswax and lemon, the flower centerpiece, the warmth of a house lived in for generations, all of it presided over by the alpha. It made him ache for all that was lost. The children were the worst, some so young they still flashed fang and eye without thinking, tussling and growling at each other in mock fights. The Dellalunas' dining table was a massive thing, so heavy it would take a rhino to shift it. The kids didn't even rock the silverware.

Derek watched the candles warily anyway.

Vincente and Marisol wanted to wrap him up and take care of him and it warmed a little of the cold emptiness, but not enough. There was hole in him that could never be filled. And, "I have responsibilities," he said later, when they had finished dinner and most of the family had gone their own ways.

Marisol pressed her lips together. Vincente nodded heavily.

"The alpha who killed your sister."

"I know it's already bitten someone," Derek said. His nose had been full of the reek of Laura's death, his intent on trying to find the new alpha's trail, but the one with the shaggy hair had moved upwind and a thread of wolf had teased at Derek's senses. They'd both been so oblivious, though, he knew the boy couldn't even know he'd turned. If he'd been bitten, it hadn't been with consent.

To Derek it was a crime as ugly as rape. The Bite was a gift, one that should be a choice. Not just because of the risk of rejection and death, but the reality of becoming something and someone different. There was no way to turn back.

"Damn it," Vincente muttered. "Michael will have your trust released within a week or two. Straightening out the inheritance will take longer. It's all the help we can offer. Sending betas – "

"Could connect a rogue wolf to your pack," Derek finished. 'I would never ask that, sir. It's my responsibility. Except Peter, I'm the last Hale." It was his duty to keep the spark and power of the Hale alphas from being warped and misused. Of course, he wanted to avenge Laura's death, but he didn't know if he had the strength of will to pursue an alpha, not when all he wanted was to walk away, find somewhere he could just lie down and give up. But he owed Laura and he owed his family.

"We can't send betas, but we can help in other ways," Marisol said to Vincente. He thought for a moment and inclined his head. "Sonou," she said.

"Ask him to come in," Vincente agreed.

"Sonou?" Derek asked. He had been introduced to everyone at the dinner. None had been named Sonou, though he knew there were pack members who weren't in Napa. Sacramento was too far to drive for an unscheduled dinner.

"Our emissary."

Derek blinked. He didn't even know who his mother's emissary had been. Laura might have. Whoever it had been, they had been no help to them in the years after the fire. Maybe the hunters had found their emissary too, despite the careful secrecy meant to protect him or her.

Vincente offering their pack's emissary's name sent multiple messages. Trust in Derek, but moreover, confidence they were powerful enough he couldn't use it against them, and that they weren't dependent on their emissary if they did lose them.

Good. The Hale emissary hadn't saved them, hadn't even warned them of the hunter in their territory. No pack should ever rely on a magic user. They weren't wolves, weren't even pack in the case of the Hales, and shouldn't be trusted.

Sonou was an elegant and tall black man. Derek sensed his pack bond first and then the faintest hint of magic that clung to him like herbs to a cook.

"I am Somalian," he said. "I met my wife working in an aid camp and only became emissary after marrying and joining her pack. My loyalties are not divided." He grinned at Derek's surprise, brilliant and sharp. "Exactly. I am not popular among those others of my kind here in this country. I do not pretend I am neutral. I have seen the cost in blood and lives from 'neutrality'."

"Sonou likes to quote Edmund Burke at them," Vincente said, a curl of pride in his tone. "Then he hammers them with Rwanda, Cambodia, and the Holocaust."

"But that is not why I am here tonight," Sonou said. "You already know the cost of hate."

"Knowledge is power," Marisol stated as she took a seat again. "Guard yours when you go back."

"I don't talk when I don't have to," Derek said flatly.

Sonou steepled his hands. "Knowledge. Emissaries simply aren't as important any more. Mail, email, telephones, skype… a non-wolf isn't needed for two packs to negotiate without instinct getting in the way."

Vincente raised his crystal tumbler. The liquor in it glowed amber and honey. It was either for appearance or for taste. Alcohol just reminded Derek of all the dives and strip joints where Laura and sometimes he had worked under the table. Alcohol usually tasted like rancid desperation to him, though the circumstances were different enough he could appreciate it now.

"For that matter," Vincente remarked, "we've all learned instinct doesn't have to compel us. We are thinking beings, not the mindless animals that hunters call us."

Sonou nodded.

"Legend and folklore influenced more than just humans until recently."

Derek indicated he was listening. He could endure a lecture on werewolf history and modern ethics if it meant gaining Dellaluna help beyond the legal. He would listen if only to be polite, given the kindness they were showing him, even if that kindness burned the raw wounds he lived with inside.

"Even the concept of territory has shifted," Sonou said. "Travel is a necessary part of modern life. Packs don't have to be clannish and defend against others crossing territory borders. It's unfair and impossible."

"New York was basically neutral territory while I was there," Derek mentioned.

"As are most major metropolitan areas now. Oh, San Francisco may technically fall within Dellaluna borders, but that doesn't mean they keep others out, just that the pack protects everyone inside from threats," Sonou explained. "Hotels, motels, roads and associated places like gas stations and restaurants, universities, we treat them as neutral now. It's understood these places don't constitute infringement on our borders."

Derek had driven through multiple pack's borders crossing the continent and known so long as he was clearly moving on, there was no problem, no reason even to contact the local alphas.

"Emissaries aren't needed for their ability to negotiate for wolves any longer."

"Alphas can meet without going for each other's' throats," Vincente commented. "We had your mother to dinner. Deucalion before. Ito, the Morrisons, the Hahas in BC. I'll give you all their numbers before you go. "

"We've put together a network of like-minded packs," Marisol said. "Arranged marriages are no longer popular, so we need to let our younger betas meet so they can find each other if packs aren't going to rely on the Bite."

"And we all try to avoid that. Life is more difficult for the Bitten."

"Though it is better for the Bitten too," Marisol insisted. "No more believing their souls are damned. No more thinking they have become monsters. We don't give the Bite to those seeking power. We give it to people who understand the risks and choose because their lives will be better as part of a pack."

There hadn't been many Bitten in the Hale Pack during Derek's childhood. He thought maybe his mother had offered it to the man who fathered him, or maybe Laura's father, but had been refused. Sig, Cora and the twins' father, had been a born wolf from a Minnesota pack, a wanderer who found a home with them. Derek never knew his own father, only that he wasn't Laura's and wasn't around, and then there was… He thinks there was a baby who died. And Sig came along, so soon there was Cora and the pack became stronger.

He'd liked Sig until Sig went back to Minnesota. Laura had always resented him though; there had never been a chance they'd go to Minnesota.

Derek struggled to focus his thoughts on what Sonou and Vicente were sharing with him and not the past.

"I'm not a traditional emissary," Sonou said. "Your mother's emissary was. He kept himself separate from your pack, secret from them. Even so, after the fire, he approached several packs. He desired to become their emissary."

"Do you know where he is now?" Derek asked.

"Alan Deaton is still in Beacon Hills," Vincente replied harshly. "No one would have him, even packs that needed an emissary. I know he went to Satomi Ito."

Hill Valley had its own small pack. Derek remembered his mother had visited their alpha often and considered her a friend. She always brought back these awful smelling teas and made everyone drink a cup. The Hill Valley Pack had been very different from the Hales, taking in omegas with no blood ties, bitten or born. He hadn't thought of them in years and realized with shock that Laura should have taken him to Satomi, who was close and a friend to their pack, after the fire.

Laura hadn't wanted to contact any pack after the first time they were turned away – they'd avoided wolf pack territories for six years. She'd been afraid another alpha would kill her. Derek squeezed his eyes shut, facing another realization: Laura had been afraid Derek would find a place in another pack when she was unwilling to bow her neck to anyone, but equally unwilling to bite anyone and rebuild their pack. Just like she'd refused to deal with the estate and kept them living hand to mouth for years when it hadn't been necessary.

Derek had been so hurt and guilty he'd never comprehended how messed up Laura had been, that most of her choices had kept them weak and isolated so he could never heal.

He was furious with Alan Deaton for doing nothing for them, but if he was honest with himself, Laura deserved a share of his anger too.

"Why wouldn't anyone take him?" Derek asked. Maybe the man was just incompetent.

"Because there was a Hale alpha and two betas alive," Marisol spat. "He owed his loyalty to the Hale pack. If he couldn't fulfill his responsibilities to you and your sister and uncle, how could any alpha trust him?" Her eyes flashed, blue as Derek's did, and he wondered if Marisol wasn't the Dellalunas' Left Hand. "That man plays a long game, but I would not have him in our territory."

"She means that," Vincente remarked. "He has to fly out of Sacramento. Sonou has warded the territory from Vacaville to Palo Alto, along with Marin and here, of course."

Derek lifted both brows. For a pack that had just explained they had no problems tolerating travelers through their territory that seemed over the top.

"He can't pass my wards without becoming progressively more and more ill," Sonou explained. "They're keyed to intent. Not just intent to harm, but intent to lie."

"Everyone lies sometimes," Derek pointed out, feeling stunned. Wards against intent? Why hadn't their pack had them? Or had they and Deaton lied? His fingertips itched; claws close to the surface at the tornado of emotion roaring under his skin.

"The intent informs the reaction," Sonou explained. "The illness is something only another practitioner or emissary would experience. There are too many people in Dellaluna territory, so I shaped the wards to target active threats." He rolled his shoulders. "I was shocked the first time they rejected another emissary."

"It's not just Deaton?"

"No, there have been several traditionalists who became progressively more uncomfortable here and have left."

"Thank you for telling me."

"Alan Deaton has stayed in Beacon Hills because he is persona non grata with every pack in North America and no longer accepted even by the most conservative emissaries."

**~~~September 11, 2012~~~**

**Half Moon**

Hunters. Werewolf hunters were a thing. Stiles didn't know why this surprised him.

Allison Argent's family were all werewolf hunters according to Derek.

Stiles felt inclined to believe him, while Scott didn't, because Derek had nearly freaked out when he heard that name.

Of course, Scott wasn't going to stay away from Allison just because her family would kill him if they found out what he was.

Stiles was not surprised.

Meanwhile, he was the one stuck working with Derek, trying to figure out who had stolen the alpha power from Laura, bit Scott, and was murdering people. Stiles could almost like the guy, if he wasn't such a dick all the time, because he got it: if something happened to his dad, he wouldn't have time for Scott's romance for the ages bullshit either.

People were dropping like flies, first those two jerks out in the Preserve the same night Stiles decided to get drunk and feel sorry for himself, then the guy at the video place, and even the school bus driver. Finally, there'd been the school custodian, when Stiles really thought the alpha was going to kill them all.

Scott just didn't seem to care that Derek was their best bet to stop the alpha before anyone else – like Stiles' dad – got hurt.

Stiles would work with the devil himself if it meant keeping his dad safe.

**~~~September 22, 2012~~~**

**Half Moon**

Stiles strolled into the care facility, chatting on his phone, just like he had every right to be there. Which he did, after all, even comatose patients got to have visitors. Comatose, catatonic, tomato, tomatoh. Pish.

Beacon Care didn't care about Stiles Stilinski. Though it was closer to the end of visiting hours than not, so he needed to keep a low profile.

Not as low as Derek needed to keep, admittedly, since the police were not looking for Stiles.

He owed Derek for letting Scotty sic the cops on him and not speaking up. Also, for helping him figure out ways to explain how to werewolf without giving himself away to the Argents and turned into a pincushion as a result. Scott blew off Derek every time Derek tried, so Stiles had to learn from the reluctant werewolf and then rephrase it as 'suggestions' and 'ideas' he'd got from the Internet. The Internet was wonderful, but it had a lot more porn to offer than useful tips on werewolfiness. Scott needed all the help he could get.

That was why he was in the corridor leading to Peter Hale's room, not on the field with the rest of the lacrosse team for the game, and Derek was slouched down waiting in Stiles' Jeep.

Walkie-talkies would have been cool for the 'check on Peter' mission, but cellphones worked.

"So, have I told you my theory?" he asked Derek.

 _"No. Look, can you hurry up?"_ Derek replied. _"Otherwise you aren't going to make it in time."_

"I've got to avoid being seen," Stiles insisted. "I don't want to have to come up with a reason I'm sneaking and peeking on your uncle. That's creepy." He looked at the closed doors and there were just numbers. Beacon Care had too many corridors. And it had that smell. Stiles wondered how Derek could stand it. "Uh. I may be lost. What number did you say was his room?"

_"One forty-eight."_

Stiles was looking at room ninety-three. So down the hall and on the other side. Peter would have a nice window to the outside.

"Anyway, my theory is the alpha is killing people who were involved in the fire – "

 _"How do you know that_?" Derek snapped.

"I snuck a look at my dad's files. Reddick and Unger had a history of arson for hire and Baumann was a firebug."

Derek was silent.

"Come on, it makes sense. Or it would if it was you… because reasons." Stiles made a face at his phone. He'd pieced it all together. Kate Argent had killed the Hales. Somehow, she'd used Derek to do it. He really didn't want to think about how. "It's not you, right?"

_"No. Stiles, are you almost there?"_

He checked the door next him. One thirty-one. "Close. Can I say this place is way creepy? It's like there's no one in here at all."

_"What do you mean?"_

"There was no one at the reception desk and the nurses' station was empty when I went by. I'd expect, like an orderly, or someone, to be here. You are definitely not getting your money's worth when it comes to twenty-four care here, dude."

_"I'll keep that in mind."_

"Yeah, I'm almost there. You know, if your uncle wasn't catatonic, he'd be my numero uno suspect – "

 _"Stiles!"_ Derek interrupted. _"Get it out there!"_

"What?"

 _"It's him. It's Peter. He's the alpha. Get out of there!"_ Derek shouted. He sounded angry and urgent and, okay, seriously worried. He sounded like a guy who had just figured out his uncle murdered his sister.

Which, oh, shit, meant Stiles was in the same place as a supernatural murder machine.

Stiles looked up the hallway. A man stood there, with his head hung just a little to side. Scars covered the side of his face. Peter Hale. The ceiling lights flickered. They'd been flickering all along, but now it felt ominous.

Oh fuck.

"Stiles, isn't it?" Peter asked as he stalked toward Stiles.

Stiles fumbled his phone, juggling it, stuck between yelling into it for Derek to come save him, calling 911, and shoving it in his pocket, as he began back-pedaling.

"Quite the clever boy."

"It's a curse." Even while while he was ready to faint, Stiles could not dial back his sass. God, his dad warned him it would get him in trouble someday. If Peter Hale didn't kill him, he was going to die of a heart attack. His heart had revved up to the redline, beating so fast it felt ready to blow up.

The left side of Peter's mouth curled up in a smirk.

Stiles kept backing up. His scalp prickled. He'd never felt that before. His whole body felt flushed and clammy at the same time. Scott had scared him a few times, but not like this. This was different and even worse than a panic attack, because this was real. He was starting to think there was no one in the nurses' station or anywhere because everyone was dead. This was right out of horror movie, a horror movie, where the goofy, lovable sidekick buys it.

He _hated_ being the sidekick.

Running wasn't going to save him, but Stiles had no idea what else to do. Of course, the minute he decided that, his back hit the counter of the nurses' station and his feet went out from under him.

Stiles let out what he could only call a squeak because his chest felt too tight to scream. He was going to die.

A door slammed violently down the other hind of the hallway behind him and Derek was there, so much faster than Scott, roaring, all icy blue eyes and fangs. He should have been scarier than Peter, who looked completely human, though he was dressed in a V-neck and a trench coat. Peter oozed menace just by tipping his head, though.

Stiles crabbed himself back, looking from Derek to Peter and back.

When the nurse came up behind Derek, Stiles tried to yell at her to get away, but his throat had locked up.

Derek must have heard her though, because he coldcocked her with his elbow in a casual display that dropped her to the floor. He glanced at Stiles and said impatiently, "Get out of here."

He was worried, though, and that finally broke through Stiles' mental paralysis. He had the cool, Terminator act down pat, but Derek was drawn taut, wound up for a fight, and wanted Stiles out of the way. He was scared for Stiles and himself.

"Wh – ?"

 _"Stiles! Run!"_ Derek commanded and then flung himself at Peter.

Peter flung him back. Derek tumbled down the corridor. But he rolled to his feet and tackled Peter again.

Stiles took one more regretful look at the unconscious nurse – her name tag read Jennifer – and scrambled to his feet. Derek was getting his ass handed to him.

Stiles ran. He felt sick, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help Derek except get out of the way.

He didn't look back. He didn't want to see Derek die. Peter had already nearly killed Derek once, at the high school the night he killed the custodian. He knew Derek was strong, much stronger than Scott, and he'd come back from stuff that should have killed him in just the time Stiles had known him, but alphas were stronger.

Derek wouldn't quit while Stiles was in danger though, so the only, best thing Stiles could do was what Derek said. He had to get out of there.

He couldn't do anything for Derek. Except not be there so Derek wouldn't waste his strength fighting Peter and safeguarding Stiles.

He drove like he was crazy all the way home, then tried to call Derek.

Derek didn't answer.

Stiles left a message then took a shower, using the sound of the hot water to mask it when he screamed in frustration.

He didn't want Derek to have died for him.

~~~

Derek woke to the feel of claws scratching through his hair. He ached a little; the memory of why filtered through the bittersweet familiarity of Peter's scent and the old house. He was lying on the green velvet chaise lounge. The one that had survived the fire unscathed beyond a one soot blackened corner. It smelled of smoke and dust, mold and must and mice, mixed with stale beer, marijuana and teenage sex. But so much closer was the warm scent of family and wolf; Peter was sitting with him, Derek's head pillowed on his lap.

Tears prickled his eyes. It was too much, knowing Peter had killed Laura. It hurt like Peter had already reached into his chest and torn his heart out. He wished Peter had just finished him.

He wished Peter had just died in the fire, instead of _this_. That filled Derek with guilt and horror. This was his uncle. Peter. Peter, who had suffered all these years because of Derek. How could he want him dead now?

But he'd killed Laura.

There was another person in the room. Nose and ears told him they were female, human, anxious and frustrated, covered in the scents of hospital so thick he almost missed the ozone buzz of magic underneath the miasma of antiseptic and illness.

The nurse, Derek diagnosed, the one Laura had said was a bitch. When he'd realized Peter was the alpha and Stiles was alone with him, she'd tried to get in Derek's way. He'd knocked her out before Peter handed him his ass.

He didn't smell Stiles or the blood that would indicate Peter had left his mauled body behind. The kid was too curious and loyal for his own good. But he was smart. He'd got away. That was good. He knew the alpha was Peter. He'd find a way to keep himself safe. At least, Derek had managed to not get one person killed. The wave of relief he felt shocked him.

He let himself soak in Peter's affectionate touch for a breath, then pulled away. There was no point to pretending he wasn't awake; Peter could hear the change in his heartbeat and smell the cascade of emotions overwhelming him since he woke.

A single LED lantern sat on the fireplace mantle. Its blue-tinged light struggled to reach farther than a few feet, but Derek and Peter didn't need it anyway. The nurse had perched herself in a chair that had belonged in the dining room before. She sat primly, knees and ankles together, her hands clasped on her lap. A dark bruise spread from her temple. She raised her eyebrows at Derek when he stared, but kept her lips, painted so scarlet the color glowed even in the dim light, pressed together.

"You've grown up since the last time I saw you," Peter said. "It's time we talked, I think."

Despite everything, Derek couldn't be unhappy to see his uncle awake and hear his voice. He still loved Peter. He was family. For a heartbeat, all Derek could feel was happiness and relief.

Then the anger roared back.

Derek sat up and Peter left the sofa. He took a place front and center between Derek and the nurse. He took the opportunity to study his uncle.

Derek hadn't time to absorb all the changes in the hospital corridor. The scars that had marred Peter's face since the fire were gone. His hair was longer than he'd kept it before and had a faint curl. His blue eyes had a hungry, manic cast, so different from Laura or Derek's mother's dark gazes. Peter was dressed expensively, in tailored slacks and a fitted silk shirt. He'd always been a bit of a peacock. A long wool coat draped over the back of the sofa, clean and new and out of place in this place of wreckage. No sign of the fight between them remained on him, unlike Derek, who could feel blood trickling from several wounds, thanks to Peter's alpha status slowing his healing.

Derek stared at his uncle and knew the damage the fire had done was still there, no matter how he'd healed at last on the surface. Humans traced their traumas on their skins; werewolves pretended they couldn't be touched and festered on the inside.

Peter wasn't the first wolf to slide into madness. Derek hadn't been so far from it himself the last six years.

It didn't soothe the betrayal he felt looking at him, though. If Derek was honest, he didn't care about the humans Peter had been killing, or even Scott, who was just a terrible, terrible choice. But Peter had killed Laura.

If Peter could kill Laura, he could kill Derek. He didn't think that would be the greatest loss, but he hated the thought of Laura's killer never facing justice. He didn't believe Peter would survive long, not the way he was killing. If it wasn't hunters, it would other werewolves, intent on keeping their secret world hidden. But it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be for Laura.

"You want to talk?" Derek rasped. "After you killed Laura?"

What made Derek ache though was how _happy_ he was to see Peter healed. He'd practically worshipped Peter as a boy. It had been one more wound, one that never stopped bleeding, when Laura had insisted that they leave Peter behind.

"Well, we could claw each other bloody and throw each other through the walls – what's left of them," Peter replied. "But that would hardly accomplish anything."

Derek wanted to object on principle. He didn't. Not from caution, just exhaustion, the draining, helpless feeling that had dogged him for years. This, what Peter had done, was somehow his fault. If he'd never believed Kate, if he hadn't been a fool, if his family hadn't burned –

He just couldn't understand how Peter could have done it. Even if Peter had been healed and a healthy beta, he shouldn't have been able to kill an alpha like Laura. She wasn't the strongest, with only Derek as her pack, but she'd been a vicious fighter.

Everything she'd known about fighting another werewolf, though, she'd learned from Peter. Their mother hadn't had time to teach them, even if they could have brought themselves to fight their alpha. Peter had been their teacher. Who better than the Left Hand of the Pack after all?

Derek dug his claws into his palms, using the pain and the blood to punish and anchor himself.

"Just say whatever it is you want," he said finally. He didn't care. Peter would kill him or not. Nothing could excuse Laura's death.

"So judgmental," Peter remarked. "Considering what you confided when you thought I couldn't hear you… " He shook his head. "Tut tut."

His face twisted into a lupine grin, long fangs sliding over his lower lip, his jaw and features subtly lengthening. "Always so black and white with you. Ah, well, we're all murderers here." He gestured theatrically to the nurse.

Derek raised his eyebrows.

"Let me introduce you," Peter purred. "This Jennifer, or should I say, Julia, my lovely and attentive night nurse. She's done so much for me. So very much… " He caressed her cheek. She caught his fingers and stroked them with a hard smile of her own.

"Julia's more than a mere nurse, of course."

Derek remembered this dance, Peter's little games and the call and response that would please him into continuing. "What's that, then? Since you've accused her of murder and using a false identity already."

"It used to be harder to get you to pay attention. I must say, I'm pleased."

"That's what matters."

Peter's mien hardened. "That it is. I'm the alpha."

Derek didn't answer, though he had known Peter could recognize obvious sarcasm like that. He bit back his own, _Not my alpha._

Peter softened and lowered his voice. He'd always had a way with persuading people, especially Derek, to listen what he wanted. He said softly, "I know you're angry. You have every right. Laura. My God, Laura. If I could go back, not do it, I would, believe me. When it happened, I was still half-mad, still caught in the endless cycle of days and nights that were my life for the last six years. Nightmares and pain and loneliness, you know it now, the loneliness of being the only one of our kind, of all my pack bonds seared to ash and gone."

"Because you killed Laura."

"Oh, you had your part in it, nephew."

Derek recoiled, feeling it was the truth. If he hadn't fallen for Kate's wiles, if he'd just kept the secret. But, no, Kate had known he was a werewolf from a werewolf family. She'd targeted them because they were werewolves. Derek had just been the weak point, a gullible, grieving boy who no one wanted to deal with in the aftermath of blue murder eyes.

"Do you want to follow the blame back to your stupid game?" In his anger over Laura, Derek found the words and the truth he'd buried inside. He'd never told Laura about Kate, and he'd never told his mother who the alpha who bit Paige had been, or who suggested it. He knew he should have, but after the one moment when she had promised Derek that she loved him no matter what, it had never been spoken of again.

Peter had been the weak link, with his malice and his envy and his selfish tricks. His games. He enjoyed manipulating Derek and anyone else he could and never considered the consequences beyond avoiding them himself. It was his actions that left Derek exposed and vulnerable when Kate came hunting. Derek hated him. Derek wanted to hate him, but Peter was all he had left of their family, and that tangled knot of emotion threatened to strangle him.

He had to stay angry. It was the only way he knew to go on.

Peter widened his eyes in false glee. "You grew teeth. Finally."

Derek shook his head in disgust.

"I understand how angry you are," Peter said. "But you're an omega now, Derek, and you need a pack. We are still family. Hales. Your place is with my pack."

"Laura _Hale_ ," Derek responded.

"Laura left me to rot!" Peter roared. His eyes flared red and the shift rippled across his face, hinting at wolf and monster in a way Derek had never seen before. "She left me trapped, tortured, and packless! I burned for six years! She abandoned me, she abandoned the Hale territory, and ran!"

"She was seventeen!" Derek yelled back. "If we'd stayed, we wouldn't have been with you, we'd have been separated by the state, easy pickings for Kate or any other hunter. How would that have held the territory or helped you?"

"She should have killed them for what they did!"

Derek surged to his feet. "She didn't _know! I never told her!"_

Peter's features faded back to human. He glared Derek, then swung away and paced back behind the nurse – Jennifer – Julia – whoever the hell she was. She was sitting there, listening to the two of them avidly. She had delicate bones and beautiful brown eyes under the plaster-thick foundation. Derek wondered what the hell she was doing here.

"Ahhhhh!" Peter yelled, tipping his head back, anger and agony bursting from him.

When he had control again, he faced Derek. "I regret, Derek, you can never know how I regret it. The guilt you've carried all these years, it is nothing to what I feel for killing Laura. It is the worst thing I have ever done or ever will do."

Derek listened for the lie in Peter's voice or heartbeat and heard nothing, but with Peter that meant little. The Left Hand had killed for the pack and his eyes had stayed yellow, because he never felt any guilt, never considered his victims innocent. Peter had always been the master of lying believably. He knew how to control his heartbeat and twist his words, so they were _true to him_ , while lying to the listener.

God knew, when Laura had tried to get Derek to talk, he'd used the same techniques to avoid the truth.

"That doesn't bring Laura back." He wanted to scream _why, why, why?_ How could Peter kill her? Was he that angry, that betrayed, that power hungry,

"No, it doesn't," Peter agreed. "I can't go back, I can't undo it. You know that."

Derek knew. He'd spent six years longing for just that. It made no difference. He dipped his head, acknowledging the fact.

"I can't ask you to forgive me," Peter said. He lifted his hand. "I can only… Please listen so you know everything that happened. So that you know _why_."

"Why," Derek repeated flatly.

"Why I needed to become an alpha, why you should join me, why we were failed, Derek. All of us, all of the pack, Laura, our alpha, Talia _failed_ us."

"You're going to blame this on mom?" Derek exclaimed in disbelief.

"You remember her as your alpha and your mother," Peter said. He folded his arms over his chest. "But she was my sister and I knew her far better than you ever did. Talia was far from perfect and she made mistakes. Some of those mistakes cost the rest of her pack, our pack, their lives."

"How the hell is what I did, what Kate and the hunters did, _Mom's_ fault!?"

"Because you were a sixteen – or was it fifteen when Kate showed up – boy! You think Laura wouldn't have forgiven you if you told her? Well, I lost as much, I was burned, and I forgive you," Peter shouted back.

Derek wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to shake. He'd always been terrified Laura would kill him or drive him away to be an omega if she knew. He'd never believed she could or would forgive him. He couldn't forgive himself.

Now, Peter said he did, and Peter _knew._

It made him shake.

"I forgive, nephew, because you were a child."

Derek shook his head. He hadn't said no. He'd thought he was in love. He'd been an idiot.

"You were her child, but Talia was too busy being the great, full-shift Alpha, too busy brokering pointless 'peace' treaties with hunters, to even see what was happening to you. Do you know Lucinda, _Lucinda,_ who didn't even live in the house, went to her and said you smelled of sex and guilt and chlorine and Talia blew her off?"

Derek flinched. He'd thought the chlorine from the pool would cover their scents. But Aunt Lucinda had always had the sharpest nose in the pack.

"Talia couldn't be bothered to be a mother to you. You'd disappointed her, like I did, because those eyes of yours made you useless in an alliance marriage."

"I was supposed to be Laura's second."

Peter laughed.

"Nephew, you never had the personality for it. You were never going to move among humans easily. You were always too much the wolf. Talia would have married you off to some East Coast pack with European bloodlines that needed more control in the next generation."

The Hales weren't just famous for the full shift. They had interbred with North American wolf-shifters long ago. They were less driven by the bloodthirsty hungers that made European werewolves into mythic monsters. They could and did live unnoticed and without harm among humans. They could control themselves even on the full moon. They were predators, not monsters, and their Bite was a gift not a curse.

Derek knew very well there were packs that would pay well – in favors, territory, money and magic – to give their children the Hales' gift. He couldn't even blame them, but he shuddered at the idea he might have been sent to live among them.

But his damned blue murder eyes would have meant no other pack would want Derek.

He almost laughed. It turned out there was one good result of mercy killing your first love. His blue shift eyes condemned him for mercy killing Paige when she rejected the Bite, but they had put off more than one wolf interested in getting close to a Hale.

Maybe he was going insane. That's what happened to omegas.

"If Talia was such a great alpha," Peter asked, "then how is it the Hale Pack was destroyed under her leadership?"

"You say that because you wanted to be alpha."

"Of course, I wanted to be alpha! I wanted to keep our pack alive! I knew that meant moving with the times."

Peter gestured to the house and beyond. "She thought living out in the woods and claws were all we needed to stay safe. All she did was isolate us and make it easy for the hunters to find and kill us."

"The kids needed to be able to run and be themselves." Little werewolves sometimes shifted without realizing. It was why all of them had been homeschooled until they had a tight grasp on their control.

Peter sighed. "Yes, of course."

Derek could see him remembering them. He didn't need a pack bond to see the way the memories scoured Peter. He felt it every time he remembered Cora or Flora and Nora and Mickey and Ned – Ned not even out of diapers, Flora who was never going to shift, as stubbornly human as Uncle Mattias was.

Peter blinked away the memories.

"Talia could have done so much more to protect us," he said. "Money wasn't a problem. We could have installed security. Cameras, motion sensors, fucking locks, damn it."

They'd never locked their doors. They were so far out from town, there was nearly always someone around, and they were werewolves. Why would they worry?

Locks wouldn't have stopped Kate and her kind, but cameras might have proved what they did. Derek was sure there were other security measures too. And if they were supernatural, the hunters might have run afoul of them.

It hurt to think there were things they could have done that would have saved them. He couldn't deny that his mother had laughed off every suggestion they use 'human tricks' to protect themselves since they were werewolves. She'd cherished Flora. She respected Mattias and might even have listened to him, but Mattias was Howard Pack and raised werewolf. He believed wolves were superior too.

"Even if Talia wouldn't use technology," Peter went on, "the house should have been warded against intent. There's magics that would have sent anyone wrong in a circle, helplessly lost, if they'd entered the Preserve."

Sonou had mentioned similar things when he warned Derek about Deaton.

Peter peered at him. "What do you know?"

"The Dellaluna's emissary has barred Deaton from their territory," Derek told him. "He's unwelcome in most territories."

Peter laughed. "Vicente and Marisol aren't fools. When did you speak to the Dellalunas?"

"When I hired them to untangle the mess the estate's in and get Laura's body back from the county for burial," Derek answered stonily.

"Well, they're right about Deaton. Never trust a druid, nephew. Every one of them has their own agenda," Peter sneered, but his mood switched up immediately. "Excellent choice going to the Dellalunas, though. Six years hasn't changed how much power they have at the State House, I'm sure."

"Deaton could have done many things, though he isn't a powerful worker," Peter mused. "But he's always been spineless, always wanted to play Richelieu from my sister's bed. She was cleverer than that, at least."

Derek suppressed the thought of Deaton in bed with his mother. He knew Talia had had lovers, he and Laura had been half-siblings, so had they all been except the twins and Cora. None of them had missed having a father; it was the way of many packs with a female Alpha.

"Talia failed you, nephew," Peter said. "She failed our entire pack. It is the alpha's job to protect the pack from threats, not the children." He huffed. "She should have protected you from me. If she'd been paying attention to the pack instead of her emissary's promises of peace with the hunters, your eyes wouldn't be blue."

Derek's head buzzed. Could any of that be true? He couldn't find where Peter had lied. He closed his eyes. His actions had still been the ones that let Kate kill everyone. How could that be his mother's fault?

"Do you know why I haven't ripped your head from your neck?" Peter crooned. "Because I was angry enough to do that. Every person who helped take away our family is going to die. And I thank you for reminding me of Deaton. His failures contributed, even if he wasn't in league with the hunters then."

Derek raised his head. "Why?"

"What if it had been Laura Kate seduced?" Peter asked. "An experienced hunter over a decade older than her."

"Laura wouldn't have fallen for Kate," Derek objected.

"Perhaps not," Peter agreed. "She was hard from the womb. Coraline then, fifteen and vulnerable after her first boyfriend dies, with no experience navigating adult emotions and hormones."

The thought of someone, anyone, touching and using fierce little Cora like that made Derek's shift rush to the fore. Claws pricked at his fingertips and his fangs sliced at the inside of his mouth.

"Would it be Cora's fault or the mother, the alpha, the pack that should have been looking out for her?" Peter demanded. "I have no patience, no mercy for those that wronged me. I do not forgive easily, but we practically threw you to the hunters. The pack turned away and they were led by my sister. Not you."

Derek hung his head. Could it be true? Could he accept this absolution from Peter? Peter, of all people? Could he accept that he'd been Kate's victim as much as the rest of his family?

He wanted to believe it, so much, and distrusted the possibility for just that reason.

He'd made who he was out of his guilt. Who would he be without it?

The anger that always seethed alongside his guilt flared. If what happened wasn't his fault, then he was free to want his revenge.

"Ahhh," Peter breathed in.

Derek held onto his anger and looked up so he could meet Peter's bright gaze.

Peter growled, "No matter what Talia did or our pack, we were peaceful, we obeyed the code, and that Argent bitch killed everyone anyway. She has to die."

Nurse Jennifer hummed under her breath. "All of them," she murmured. Her hand drifted to her cheek, a gesture of someone reminiscing.

"Yes," Peter murmured. He stroked her shoulder. "Don't you want revenge, nephew? All these years, haven't you been choking it back while you obeyed Laura and hid, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, in New York? While I languished in that 'home', trapped inside my body, going insane from the memories and pain?"

Derek would have gone after Kate if he'd believed he could beat her. At sixteen he'd been no match for her. He doubted he was now either. Strength and speed didn't match a lifetime's training in killing his kind. But Peter was right.

"I want her dead," he admitted.

"All of them, all of them who had a part in it," Peter said. "Join me, Derek. Hale and Hale. I bit that moron but he's useless. But I won't kill him, because he wasn't part of it. He was just a child then, he's child now, and I don't target children."

"And her?" Derek asked with a nod at Nurse Jennifer. Julia. Whatever the fuck her name was.

"Ah, my Jennifer Julia," Peter said. "I would still be stewing, helpless, in the home if it weren't for her."

And Laura would be alive. But Derek couldn't wish Peter to have gone on suffering. Even though Jennifer Julia made his instincts go haywire, she had helped his uncle when he and Laura hadn't.

He tipped his head toward her and muttered, "Thank you."

Peter smirked. "Still so polite."

"It's charming," Jennifer Julia spoke. She smiled at Derek. Something shimmered across his senses and he thought how pretty she'd be without the heavy make-up. Something terrible must have driven her to hide herself away as a night nurse to a catatonic. She'd helped Peter and now he was using her. It wasn't right. Someone needed to protect her –

Peter snapped his finger in front of Jennifer Julia, long black claws finishing it with a sharp click. "Ah, ah, none of that, my dear."

The haze that had settled over Derek's thoughts dissipated and a jolt of adrenaline, fear and fury burned through his system. "What the fuck was that!?" he demanded. He was on his feet without memory of moving.

"Glamour," Peter snarled. "The magical equivalent of roofies." He ran the heavy claw on his thumb along the column of her throat. "I don't appreciate you using it on my nephew of all people, my dear. – Besides, it's unnecessary. Derek can be stubborn, but he'll see the sense to joining me without your interference."

"Magic," Derek repeated. He glared at the nurse. She'd tried to magic him into doing what she wanted. He tasted bile. It was too much like Kate. She'd used him too. He was glad he'd knocked her out at the care facility. He wished he'd hit her harder.

"Julia used to be druid, actually," Peter said. "Emissary to the Patterson Pack down in San Bernardino."

"Never trust a druid?"

She made a noise of protest, but Peter laughed happily. "Oh, nephew. Indeed, it wouldn't be wise to trust Julia, she has her own reasons for helping me."

Derek studied her. "Was the emissary," he asked. "What happened? Hunters?"

"Have you heard of the Alpha Pack?" she asked, sharp and bitter.

He had, along with Laura. It was one of those bogeyman tales that were whispered among the supernaturals in New York. Rumors of an alpha pack of werewolves that preyed on other packs had begun around the same year he and Laura arrived there. Weak or small packs, new alphas who were vulnerable, or packs that were unstable in the wake of a change in alphas. Laura had been petrified, even as she mocked the whole idea.

She took his silence as confirmation.

"Deucalion convinced my alpha to join them," Julia spat. "You know how you join the Alpha Pack? The alpha turns on and kills their own pack. Kali slaughtered her betas and left me for dead. It took blood magic to keep me alive." She leaned forward. "Bastards like Alan Deaton called me darach for that, for fighting to stay alive." She leaned back. "What does he know of the dark? Self-righteous prick."

No argument on that front. Derek wouldn't have liked Deaton even if he hadn't been warned about him.

"Deucalion was at the peace treaty your mother brokered. The one where he met Gerard Argent and was blinded?" Peter paused portentously. "You remember Ennis, don't you, Derek? Ennis was there. Even if your sweet girl had turned, she would have been his beta… and Ennis was the first alpha to join Deucalion."

"I remember them both," Derek said tightly. He wouldn't have shed a crocodile tear if Ennis had been killed by the hunters, even then, and wasn't surprised to hear what he'd done.

"Julia came to Beacon Hills looking for a Hale Alpha," Peter explained. "She wants revenge on the Alpha Pack and was willing to offer her magic to help destroy the hunters who killed our family in exchange."

He sighed.

"Of course, she found me in my state at the care home instead. But Julia is a most accomplished magic worker, much stronger than Deaton, and she realized that if she helped heal me, I would owe her a debt."

"One you could pay by helping her kill her enemies."

"Exactly."

Peter stayed behind Julia. His hands rested lightly on her bird-boned shoulders. His claws dimpled the fabric of her blouse.

"Deaton could have helped him," Julia said maliciously. "Not as well as I, but any druid could have healed the worst of the damage so his own healing would take over." She sneered. "It doesn't take a Merlin to place a werewolf in the moonlight or give an injection of wolfsbane ash."

Peter touched his face. "The scars were a bit harder repair. The wolfsbane was imbedded in the scar tissue."

Derek shuddered because it must have kept burning the entire time Peter had been scarred.

Werewolves normally healed without scars or marks. Even tattoos disappeared without magic or wolfsbane. The artist who had done Derek's triskele in New York had used a handheld blowtorch to set the tattoo and, even so, it only remained because Derek wanted it to stay. He'd welcomed the transitory agony as a reminder of what his family had suffered.

A second tattoo technique required an ink infused with a specific strain of wolfsbane that stayed under the skin and kept the werewolf from healing the tattoo away. Those tattoos were used as punishment when marking an exile because the pain never faded and the wolfsbane weakened the werewolf as long as it was in their system.

Like a wolfsbane tattoo, the wolfsbane in Peter's scars would have kept them from healing, kept him weak and helpless and in pain. Six years of pain that could have been mitigated if Alan Deaton would have _bothered_.

"How did you heal the scars?"

It had to have been done recently. Peter's scars had been there when Derek visited him, until the confrontation last night. It wasn't taking Laura's alpha power that had healed them.

"When he was strong enough, after I'd burnt the wolfsbane from his system, I cut away all the cicatrices, burned out any wolfsbane that was left in his flesh beneath, and let his healing take over," Julia explained.

The pain of that alone would have been enough to drive someone mad. Peter's burns had covered far more than his face and hands. Over thirty percent of his body had been burned and scarred. Cutting away that much skin would have been excruciating even without the hot wolfsbane ash that followed, no matter how fast Peter had healed.

Peter lifted his eyebrows. "What you saw at the hospital was another of Julia's glamours. I could hardly do what I needed to do crippled by scar tissue."

Julia was very, very strong.

"Once my body was healed, Julia convinced me I needed power to extract my revenge. I needed to be an alpha."

"Why Laura, though?" Derek plead. "Why your niece?"

"Just because my body was whole again doesn't mean my mind had recovered," Peter said. "Julia promised she had lured an alpha to the territory. I wasn't in control of myself. All I could feel was the moon and rage, all I saw was a wolf I didn't recognize. I didn't know it was Laura until the alpha passed into me."

"She was doing nothing with the alpha power," Julia protested. "She'd left you to rot, let the hunters go unpunished, she deserved it."

Peter pressed Julia down in her seat. Blood red had swallowed his irises and his mouth had filled with razor-tipped teeth. Savage fury heated his words. "I didn't know it was my niece that had been lured to die on my claws until her body was lying at my feet!"

Contempt twisted her features into an ugly mask, uglier than Peter's burns had been. "You were still weak, but I knew she would hesitate, so I made sure you wouldn't. Are you sorry you're alpha now?" Julia demanded. She tipped her head back to see him, oblivious to the way it bared the line of her throat. Even without the violent anger pulsing through both werewolves, that would have triggered their predatory instincts. "You can kill them now, the way she wouldn't!"

Derek's fingers curled, his claws out, and he ached to tear that throat open. She'd killed the animals and carved the revenge spiral into them to draw Laura back to Beacon Hills. She'd set Laura up. She'd used Peter the way Kate used him.

Julia's feet scrabbled on the ashy floor as she tried to rise and realized Peter wouldn't let her. His claws had sunk through skin now; blood soaked the cloth they went through. Her eyes were wide and wild, suddenly panicked.

"Nephew?" Peter asked casually. "Would you like to do the honors? For Laura?"

"No, no, no, nooooooo!" Julia screamed. She brought her hands up and tore her human nails against Peter's hands. "I healed you, I made you the alpha, I gave you what you wanted!" Power blasted out from her. It tossed Derek off his feet, but Peter held onto her. The ozone bite of magic, mixed with sweet rot, flooded the house.

"Considering what Kali did to you, my dear, you should have known better than to trust another alpha," Peter said.

Jennifer Julia reached for an amulet at her throat. Her magic twisted again, and Derek wanted to kill Peter. But he already wanted to kill Peter. The false rage didn't overwhelm him.

Peter lifted one hand from Julia's shoulder and sliced her throat open in a single swipe. He held her body in place as she thrashed and tried to close her hands over the blood fountaining from her carotid and jugular.

She bled out fast. Derek heard her heart stop. He couldn't feel any regret or remorse over her death.

Peter released his hold on her shoulder and the body slid limply to the floor.

"Don't you want to do that to Kate?" he asked Derek.

Derek imagined Kate there, face pressed into the dirty floorboards, eyes blank, body nothing more than a sack of decaying meat and bones, and the only thing left alive in her the bacteria in her guts that would rot her from the inside.

"Yes," he said honestly. His fingers twitched. "Yes."

"Her and all the scum she used," Peter said.

He glanced down at Jennifer Julia and made a tsking noise. "Did she think I would forgive her for using me to kill Laura? Do you forgive Kate?"

"No."

"Good. Her car is parked around the back. It has a nice, big trunk. I don't feel like burying her on our land."

He reached for Derek, but Derek stepped away. "We're still family," Derek said, "and I'll help you kill the ones who helped burn our family. But I'm not your beta."

And when Kate was dead, Derek didn't know what he'd do.

**~~~September 23, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Half Moon**

Alphas needed betas. It was more than want, they were driven by their animal natures to build their packs and their power. Any pack with less than three betas was by nature unbalanced and unstable.

Hunter lore told of how most werewolf packs were families. The filthy animals birthed more of their kind. At least they didn't have litters like their wolf counterparts, but the ability of werewolves to birth more werewolves meant that as long as hunters followed the Code, they couldn't wipe the creatures out.

Her brother worried about the Code. But Chris was soft. Even his wife Victoria was, or they would have raised Allison properly as a hunter instead of keeping her ignorant.

Kate didn't remember her own mother much, but she was probably too worried about the Code too. Her father had taught her better. They were protecting all the poor, deluded fools who didn't know what monsters lived in the shadows and the night.

She would stay here in Beacon Hills. There was an alpha werewolf and its betas to kill. She'd finally finish the Hales as well. The burned one wouldn't be a challenge, but oh how delicious it would be to get her hands on Derek again. He'd been so naïve, so eager and lonely six years ago. Corrupting him, making him love her and twisting him up, seducing him into kinky, crazy sex, had been almost more of a thrill than killing him would have been.

God, for a fifteen-year-old, he'd been excellent. All that stamina and a very pretty dick, not that he'd had a clue what to do with it or his mouth and fingers before she fucked him the first time.

It made her shiver, just thinking about it and maybe having him again. Men were mostly puling disappointments. Derek had not only looked good, he'd taken direction and been so charmingly ready to do anything to please.

Kate pressed her hand between her legs. She felt the dampness soaking through. Derek wasn't the alpha, but he'd know who it was and who the other betas were too. She could get it out of him and have some fun for old times before she put him down.

It was almost a shame.

It would be worth it though, when she could tell her father she'd killed the last Hale. Even more if she could use him to begin training Allison. The boy she was sneaking around seeing from school wasn't anywhere near good enough for her.

Kate was tempted to seduce him just to demonstrate to Allison exactly how much 'true love' counted for with boys. She didn't want Allison to be angry with her though. She wanted Allison to realize how much Kate had to teach her.

Let Victoria and Chris play the bad guys about floppy-haired Scott.

Once she showed Allison what monsters were out there, she was sure her niece would forget about high school romance. Though she might be able to use her contacts. There were several students Kate considered to be likely candidates as the betas.

Well, maybe she'd drop a hint or two to Victoria about who Allison was dating, just to stir the pot. It would be entertaining at the very least.

Her news feed had mentioned that David Whittemore's minor son had been present when the alpha killed the video store clerk. How likely was it the beast had left the juicy brat untouched? How much more likely was it that the alpha had bitten the kid and left him to turn?

Then there was the Sheriff's nosy kid. That one didn't react to Kate the way an oblivious teenager should. He'd looked at Kate the way she looked at the scorpions she knocked out of her boots in the morning when she was down in Arizona. His eyes were practically gold, like he was on edge of a shift all the time.

She didn't want the brat drawing police attention to her, though, so she'd leave him alone for now.

Now where would she find Derek?

Kate wriggled in her seat, the warmth spreading through her as she sat at her rented kitchen table.

He'd go back to the house, poor thing, where they all burned to greasy soot. She really wanted to tell him how they'd sounded, screaming and howling inside, though the flames had made it hard to hear clearly.

She reached for her phone. It would need to be an ambush and as good as she was, a little back-up from some of her father's men wouldn't go amiss. Derek wasn't an alpha, but he was a werewolf in his prime and well wary of her. It was always harder to take a captive than just kill someone, too.

That only made Kate look forward to the hunt more.

**~~~September 24, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Half Moon**

Kate listened to Allison scream that she hated them at Chris and Victoria as she slipped out the back door. Dropping a hint that Allison's boyfriend was a werewolf had set off a family fight, just as she'd predicted. If they weren't going to tell Allison the truth, then forbidding her to see the boy was going to blow up in their faces.

She was fine with that. When she showed Allison werewolves were real, it would just show Chris and Vicky up for liars. Allison would naturally fall in with the way things should be. After all, Kate would be the only one to tell her the truth.

Allison would hate the boy for lying about what he was and her parents for hiding the truth.

And once she saw Derek, Allison would understand that monsters had to be hunted down and killed.

Kate had almost killed Scott McCall the moment she saw what he was. She'd nearly been sick at the thought of him with Allison. She'd thought though and realized how useful it could be to drive a wedge between Allison and Chris and Victoria.

It wasn't like it would be hard to get rid of the mutt. Even for a Bitten, he was pathetic. An easy kill.

If Kate handled it right, Allison's first kill would be Scott McCall. Once Allison had taken that step, she would never look back.

It would be too painful.

**~~~September 25, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

"Every family has a secret," Kate told Allison as she guided her down the stairs into the basement of the farmhouse on the outskirts of town.

Allison wondered what the surprise was and why it was in the basement, but mostly she could only concentrate on what it meant that Kate had a house, here in Beacon Hills. Her father and mother had promised her no more moving when they came here, not until she left for college, maybe not even then. Mom could get a job anywhere, but Dad had worked for Argent Arms for as long as Allison remembered, just like Aunt Kate, so they'd always been moving.

Allison hated it.

But Dad had left his job and opened the gun range and sporting goods store here in Beacon Hills. That wasn't something you packed up and left in four or six months. That was what they called 'community ties'.

She'd begun to hope it was true, they were staying. She hoped so more than she ever had before. She'd never had a boyfriend before, but it wasn't just Scott. There was Lydia. Allison thought her heart would break if she had to leave the best friend she'd ever known. From the first day she stepped into Beacon High, it had been magical. She finally had a place where she fit and was welcomed.

Aunt Kate coming to visit for her upcoming birthday had seemed almost too good be true, because Kate came and went to whims Allison had never been privy too.

But if she had a house, maybe that meant she'd be staying too.

Allison's life couldn't get any better. Her parents would come around about Scott in time. They had to.

"Ours is special," Kate continued.

The basement stairs were badly lit from the open door above, and the basement itself was in darkness. There were no windows and it smelled like earth and damp and an animal. Allison shuddered and moved slower, her free hand on the cinderblock wall. She could hear something humming in the darkness, electricity in the air. Her heart began rocketing as Kate let her go.

"Just let me get the light," Kate said.

The sound of a pull chain for a light preceded the light coming on. The bulb hung from the ceiling, uncovered, and Kate stood directly in the yellow pool of light beneath it, smiling back at Allison.

The corners of the basement were still dim, but Allison could see well enough.

Allison knew her life had just become worse than she'd ever imagined.

A man was chained to a metal fence gate standing in the far corner. His only clothes were his dark jeans, made darker at the waist where they were stained. Smears that must have been blood ran down his bare torso. He hung from his wrists, too far up to support his weight on the floor, but he had hooked one foot to a crossbar of the gate to hold himself up. His head hung so all Allison could make out was dark hair.

The light made it hard to tell if he was breathing, but she thought so. The light bulb buzzed.

There was a work table. There were implements on it. Allison couldn't bring herself to look too closely. Too many of them looked rusty. An electric fence charger sat on the table, plugged in and running, the source of the hum. The needles showing the voltage flickered. The wires from it hooked to the man, where they were taped to his side.

Allison took a blind step backward. The heel of her boot hit the bottom stair. The noise made the man lift his head slightly, enough to peer through long black lashes at Allison. He looked, saw her and dismissed her as soon as Kate laughed.

Kate laughed with such abandon. Allison trembled. Laughing like that didn't make sense in a basement where a man was chained up and being slowly electrocuted.

"Oh, honey, don't look so freaked out," Kate said. She walked over to the table and tapped a fingernail against the fence charger. "Derek here can take a lot more than this." She smiled seductively in his direction. "Can't you, sweetie?"

He bared his teeth at Kate and Allison recognized him: Scott or Stiles' friend who had driven her home after Scott got sick. He'd been quiet, but she hadn't felt in danger from him. He'd insisted she call Stiles and confirm she was accepting a ride from him.

"Aunt Kate," Allison whispered, "What are you doing to him?" Maybe she meant why? Why do this to someone? Why show me? What does this have to do with our family?

Maybe she meant _what's wrong with you?_

Kate picked up an outsized cattle prod and shoved it into Derek's stomach. Sparks crackled from him to the manacles holding him to the gate. He seized up, the chains rattling, head thrown back and then there were lambent blue eyes and long teeth and a howl that echoed off the basement walls.

Kate laughed again as Derek went limp. "See?"

"Is that going to kill him?" Allison asked.

"Oh, come on, kiddo."

Shudders rippled through Derek where he hung. Blood trickled down the undersides of his arms from where the manacles cut into his wrists. His eyes were pale and human again, lashes clumped with involuntary tears. The fangs were still cutting into his lower lip. They looked shockingly sharp. He gasped for breath.

"What is he?"

"Shape-shifter. Lycan. Werewolf." Kate poked him with the prod again but didn't trigger it. Instead she tossed it on the table. Derek didn't move beyond following her movements with his eyes. "To me he's just another dumb animal."

Kate took Derek's jaw in her hand and peeled his lip back with her other. "Come here."

Allison kept her distance.

"See these right here? These are canines, also known as fangs. Made for the tearing and rending of flesh. Not something you'd find on those cute little leaf-eating herbivores, are they?" Kate giggled. It made Allison want to run.

Allison didn't say she'd seen Kate eat rare venison she'd hunted herself.

"Is this a joke to you?" she asked.

"Sweetheart, there are werewolves running around in the world. Everything's a joke to me. How else do you think I stay sane?"

"What – what does this have to do with our family?"

"This is what Argents _do_ , Allison. That's our secret. Just like being monsters was the Hales' secret." She stroked her thumb along Derek's cheek. If he'd turned his head, he could have snapped off her fingers. Instead, he cringed away from the familiarity of her touch. Allison hated it, hated seeing this Kate, because the way she did that was all wrong. You didn't touch a dangerous animal like that.

"We hunt monsters. Me, your grandfather, your mom, your dad. Your grandfather started my training when I was seven. I killed my first werewolf when I was twelve. I'd just got my first period. It came to the smell of blood."

Allison gagged.

Derek lifted his head enough to look at Kate with what looked like horror. Allison didn't know if it was at Kate's confession of killing one of his kind or her age when she did it. Or that she'd used menstruating as bait.

So different from her mom staying with her the first time, fixing her a heating pad, telling Allison about tampons and pads, cuddling together with her over hot chocolate and cookies while they marathoned movies all day.

God, was it true? Could it be? Could her mom and dad know about this? Could they do this? Did they expect her to become like Kate? "When were they going to tell me?"

"They still haven't decided when they're going to tell you." Kate flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Oh, they've been training you. You just didn't know what for. But they don't think you're ready. They'll never think you're ready. But I see natural talent and when you help me catch the alpha and the other beta and put them down, they'll know."

"What?" Allison didn't even know what to address first. Her parents had been training her… Oh God. The self-defense lessons, shooting, archery, tracking, situational awareness and deer hunting. None of it was about staying safe.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of the next part. Go home, go to school, do your homework. Fuck your boyfriend while you can. Be a normal teenage girl, have fun. Trust me."

Allison looked at Derek again. He looked beyond desperation. He opened his mouth. Allison hesitated. What was his side of this? Kate thrust the cattle prod into his side again and he screamed.

Allison turned and ran up the stairs, into the kitchen, and retched into the sink until her eyes streamed and her nose stuffed up, shaking so hard she thought she would fall down. When not even bile ran from her mouth, she washed it out with cold water. The taste persisted, the way it always did, at the back of her raw throat. She washed her face and double-checked she hadn't got any vomit in her hair, then rinsed the sink.

Her mom or her dad always held her hair away from her face when she was sick as kid. Kate had never been there for anything like that.

A wide, fallow field stretched between the back of the farmhouse and the edge of the Preserve, dead grass gone gray-yellow and flattened. The day was shading toward gray, the sun almost down. Allison shivered. A cold draft seeped through the loose sill of the window.

Kate hadn't come up the stairs to see if she was all right.

She was still down there with Derek.

Because Argents killed monsters and Derek was a monster.

She thought of his eyes, blue as a gas flame when the electricity made him convulse. The fangs and the claws that sprouted from his fingertips. Werewolves were real.

But how dangerous were they if Kate could catch him and hang him up like that, a skeptical voice whispered at the back of her mind.

She hadn't latched the basement door behind her. She heard a roar that twisted into another pained howl, then Kate's voice, but she couldn't make out the words.

Helpless to stop herself, needing to know more, Allison crept to the door. She sank down on her knees and listened.

"Look at that sour face," Kate crooned. "I bet you always get that. People coming up to you, telling you to smile, Derek, why don't you smile more? You'd be so pretty if you smiled."

Allison needed to see. Kate sounded so… She was teasing him, taunting him, and Allison didn't think she had anything more to come up, but she'd heard guys say things like that to girls and it was always awful. It was always because the girl wasn't being 'nice' enough or saying yes to what they wanted. Kate wasn't like that. Kate didn't want anything like that from Derek, not when she said he was a werewolf and werewolves were monsters. Did she?

She worked her way down, crouched on the steps, and watched through the bannisters.

"He killed your sister. Did you want to kill him yourself, sweetie? Is that why you're protecting him? Or – wait, it's not him. There's another beta. Ooooooh. Is it that stupid blond boy with the Porsche? Jackson?" Kate cocked her head. "No? That boy with those big, Bambi eyes maybe. Do they turn gold now? I bet he's still a virgin. Remember what that was like, Derek? I wonder if that buzzcut feels as velvety as it looks. I could pet other parts of him. He'd like that, wouldn't he? Teenage boys are so responsive. They make it easy, just like you did."

Allison reeled at the insinuation in Kate's words and the tone of her voice. Stiles. She was talking about Stiles. Kate was thirty-three. Allison had given her a beautiful pair of boots her mom helped her get a discount on, made in Italy, for Kate's birthday. Stiles was younger than Allison.

"He's the Sheriff's son," Derek told Kate. "He's human."

Kate brightened up. "Well, then, who else could it be? Who else might it be… Allison's puppy of a boyfriend? He's not that bright, but he must have something going for him. Is it Scotty, then?" She laughed. "Who the hell would make him a beta?" She leaned closer and whispered something Allison couldn't hear.

Kate had her hands flat on his chest. She was so close. He surged forward and snapped at her. Kate leaped back and peals of her laughter rang through the basement.

"Do you bite now, Derek? Kinky. We could have so much fun. If I thought you'd be a good boy, I'd let you free. Who is the alpha, Derek?"

She turned and scooped up his wallet, going through it. "Nothing, nothing, nothing." She tossed it down again. "I hate this detective crap. Where's your phone?"

"Lost it," Derek said. "Go ahead and torture me. I won't help you again."

"Oh, sweetie, I don't want to torture you. I just want to catch up." Kate came teasingly close again. She was grinning, filled with a glee that disturbed Allison. It looked sexual. Everything Kate was doing had a sexual thread running through it. "Remember all the fun we had together?"

"Like the time you burned my family alive."

Allison pressed her fist to her mouth.

"No, I was thinking more about the hot, crazy sex we had. But the fire thing. Yeah, that was fun too."

Derek snarled at her, but Kate leaned in close and licked her way up his bare stomach, stopping just short of the reach of his teeth. A high flush colored her cheeks. She was almost vibrating. A deep growl rolled from Derek, but the chains gave away the movement of his body as he tried to jerk away from her. His chest heaved and his stomach hollowed trying to escape Kate's mouth.

Allison bit her tongue so she wouldn't scream.

"I love how much you hate me," Kate taunted him. "Remember how this felt?"

She sank down to her knees. Her hands went to the button on Derek's jeans. He jerked back but couldn't escape.

"No!" he yelled.

Kate reached inside his fly and stroked, then made a moue of disappointment.

"Oh, Derek, if you're not going to talk and you're not going to be any fun, I'm just going to have to kill you." She rose to her feet, hands on his hips. "Say hi to your sister for me. You did tell her about me, didn't you? The truth about the fire?"

Derek groaned and looked away.

"Or did you?"

He closed his eyes.

Kate laughed again. "Did you tell anybody? Oh, sweetie, that's just a lot of guilt to keep buried. It's not your fault. You got tricked by a pretty face, it happens." She walked her fingers up to take his chin and force him to look at her again. "Handsome young werewolf mistakenly falls in love with a super-hot girl…. Who comes from a family that kills werewolves."

"They weren't all werewolves," he choked out. "You killed humans too."

"Well, they could have been," Kate said with a shrug. "Better safe than sorry."

"They were children."

"Boohoo."

Kids. Children. Werewolves. _Humans_. Allison's thoughts were a whirlwind of knives flailing everything she'd believed about her aunt to bloody shreds. If werewolves were monsters how could she have done what she said with Derek? How could she want to fuck him now?

 _Scott._ Was Scott one of them? Was Kate going to kill him or seduce – Allison gagged at the thought. He was her boyfriend. Kate wouldn't do that to Allison. She couldn't do what she was doing to Derek to Scott.

How could she? Everything Allison had thought about Kate, about her family, her whole world, was shattering.

Was it like slave owners who had used the people they owned for sex while insisting they were less than human and sold their own children because they were brown? How did anyone rationalize that Allison had always wondered?

How did Kate rationalize what she was doing? Allison's parents, did they – were they like this too?

Who were the real monsters?

Allison inched her way up. She had to get away. She had to get somewhere she could think and try to understand what was happening. Tears seeped down her cheeks.

She fled to her mom's car and tore out of the farmyard to the highway toward town, half blind with tears and foot down on the gas pedal until the wail of a siren and blue-and-red lights brought her back to herself. She pulled over, almost going into a ditch, shoved the gear into park and sobbed.

**~~~September 27, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

Stiles picked Allison up. He felt uncomfortable in the clothes Lydia had forced him to buy when she heard he would be Allison's date. _My best friend is not going to the Formal with a hobo!_

He honestly didn't know exactly how he'd ended up escorting Allison. Was it a date? Was he just cover so she could rendezvous with Scott? Did Allison's parents know Scott was a werewolf? Did they think Stiles was one? They'd invited him into the foyer and watched as Stiles stepped over a line dark dust.

It looked like Allison's mom needed to sweep or get a new vacuum, there was black dust along the door sill. Stiles stepped over it with a quizzical look, especially when he noticed how intently Allison's mother was watching him.

"Nice place," he commented, though all he could really see was the foyer and a bit of hall.

"Thank you."

He offered up the flowers he'd bought, along with a boutonnière and corsage for Allison. "For you, ma'am."

Allison's mother took the bouquet with a twist of her lips. She looked a lot less murderous, at least. "How very thoughtful."

Stiles held up the clear plastic box holding the corsage. "I saw them when I was getting this and thought, you know, it would be nice and sort of a thank you for letting me take Allison out."

She nodded. "It is nice. I'll get Allison's father. He wanted a picture before you go."

Stiles got why as soon as he saw Allison.

She looked amazing – there was no denying those dimples or her incredible jawline or her beautiful dark eyes. Frankly, even in a Lydia approved suit, she looked way out of Stiles' league.

She set her hand on Stiles' arm as they pulled away from the curb. "Stiles…"

He looked at her and slumped a little. "I know. You want me to get you there and then play invisible man while you get together with Scotty."

"I have to talk to him. It's – I haven't had a real chance since my parents decided we couldn't date." Close up, she looked bruised, with concealer layered over dark hollows under her eyes. She'd been withdrawn in class the last two days too.

"I've passed on all his notes and yours!" Stiles protested. He had. He wasn't comfortable playing Nurse or whoever in a modern werewolf version of Romeo and Juliet, but he'd done it. That shit did not turn out well for the teenagers. Though Nurse was probably better than being Tybalt or Mercutio or any of the others that ended up dead in the feud. He would have clutched at his hair if he hadn't been driving. "Arrgh."

"This isn't a love note," Allison said. "It's serious. It's – I need to know if he's been lying to me. My aunt – " She looked ready to cry. "My family – " She tightened her grip on Stiles' arm. "This isn't something I can write down. I'm sorry, Stiles. And you – you should be careful."

"No, it's okay," Stiles said. "But I'm sure Scott hasn't lied to you – " _about anything except being a werewolf._ Fuck fuck, fucking fuckity fuck with a cherry of fuck on top. It wasn't like confessing you were a werewolf was an easy thing, even if it wasn't to Allison Argent, heiress to a werewolf killing dynasty and Disney Princess. "And I am super careful. When I can be." He added, "Of what?"

She pressed her lips together. "My family."

He tried to sound lighthearted, but it just came out flat, "Yeah."

Allison's family – Argents were werewolf hunters according to Derek. Hunters who had killed the Hale family, except Laura, Peter, and Derek.

Who was missing in action, not answering his phone, not at the Hale house, Sir Not There, and that was freaking Stiles out when he let himself think about it. Stiles hadn't seen or heard from Derek and neither had Scott since the night Derek kept Peter from killing him. And if Peter could kill Derek – and why not, he'd killed Laura, who was the alpha, what's a nephew after a niece? – then how was Scott going to stand up to him?

"Okay," Stiles said. "We get there, we find Scott, you two do you, and I go see if the punch is spiked."

It would be nice if he could scrub off a little of the hurt with some liquor, but he couldn't afford to get drunk. He still had to drive Allison and himself home and he didn't need to piss off his dad anymore.

There were so many lies between them already; he wasn't going to screw up when someone's life wasn't on the line. Tonight was going to suck balls. With Scott and Allison all up in each other, there wasn't going to be anyone here who even liked Stiles. They didn't mean to screw him over, but there was no use pretending he was anything but a third wheel.

"If you can't find me, you can call me when you're ready to go home," he finished in time to steer the Jeep into the school parking lot. The walls of the buildings were lit up with star-shaped spotlights.

"Thanks, Stiles," Allison said sincerely.

He shrugged. "Hey, Scotty's my best friend and I like you, we're friends too," he said to brush it off.

Allison looked a little teary-eyed and he didn't think he'd said anything that bad. Stiles dusted his hands together. She looked ready to hug him or melt down and Stile was not a fan of emotional scenes. "Okay! Let's go make this party a _par-tay!_ "

Allison laughed at him, sounding only a little choked and wet. Must be allergies. Maybe he'd put on a little too much of his dad's cologne.

~~~

Allison felt guilty about lying to her parents, but they'd lied to her all her life. It evened out. She felt worse about using Stiles, because he'd been nothing but nice to her, even if he wasn't one of the people Lydia thought was important. He was Scott's friend and he'd immediately extended that friendship to her. Using him was worse than lying to her parents because of the draconian edict that she had to stay away from Scott McCall.

She just needed to see Scott.

She needed to feel his arms fold around her and hold on.

But she also needed to know if it was true, if Scott was like the man Kate had in her basement.

And, God, she had to decide what to do about him. Even if he was a monster, what Kate was doing wasn't right. Her father had taught her that you put down rabid animals because they were a danger, but you didn't torture them. Even though she was questioning everything he'd taught her, Allison still believed that.

She'd heard Kate confess – no, Kate hadn't been sorry in the least – dismiss that she'd killed people who weren't werewolves too. For what, for being in the same family, the same house?

It was driving Allison insane.

She murmured distracted hellos to Lydia and Jackson while she searched the crowd in the auditorium looking for Scott.

She still hadn't spotted him when he spoke from behind her shoulder, voice lifted enough to be heard over the music. "Allison."

Allison spun and almost flinched at the scowl marring Scott's features. She'd never seen him angry, except maybe on the lacrosse field. Never at her.

"Scott," she caught his hand and started dragging him toward one of the exits. She didn't need some tattletale schoolmate to see them together and have it somehow get back to her parents, especially her mother. "I have to talk to you."

"How could you come with Stiles?" Scott accused her. "He's my best friend – "

"I heard you kissed Lydia and you know how he feels about her," Allison snapped back, because she wasn't letting anyone, even Scott, double-standard her.

He shut up but she could feel the sulk pouring off him.

The exit took them into a locker-lined corridor. Allison tugged him down it to another, wondering why there were never any adults overseeing this school. Any other she'd gone to, there would have been chaperones patrolling the hallways to make sure no one snuck off to a classroom to make-out. Maybe the teachers were all hiding, afraid of what happened to the custodian.

Parents in Beacon Hills – with the except of hers – seemed to leave their kids to take care of themselves, either not giving a damn or too busy working. She wouldn't be surprised to find out half of them were androids or at least brainwashed; Beacon Hills had an almost Stepford vibe compared to other towns.

She tightened her grip onto Scott's hand so hard he should have protested.

"I missed you," Scott said when they stopped. Orange light from the halogens in the parking lot gleamed off the floors and the lockers. Allison could just make out Scott's features. The dim pulse of music from the auditorium could still be heard. Headlights streaked across the walls as people arrived and left. He leaned in to kiss her. "I'm sorry I got jealous when I saw you with Stiles."

Allison stopped him with a hand to his chest.

"Stiles asked me so I could get my parents to agree, so I could see _you_." Stiles wouldn't try to poach the girl his friend loved. That was really unfair to him, especially since he'd been playing messenger for the two of them and tonight he was covering for them meeting.

She felt insulted Scott would think she'd move on so fast and with his gawky friend too.

"I'm so glad," Scott said with a happy smile. He tried to kiss her again and Allison had to stiffen her arm to keep him at a distance. He was so much stronger than he looked.

"Scott," she said. "Scott, I have to know."

"Know what?" he asked, head dipped, innocent, brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

Allison closed her fingers on his shirt. "Are you – "

"What?" But his expression was fading from innocence to awareness. Outside, brakes screeched. Someone yelled. Headlights brightened the corridor again. The glare played over Scott's face. He squeezed his eyes shut, but for just a second, they flared yellow-bright, reflecting the way an animal's eyes did beside the road at night.

 _"You are a werewolf,"_ Allison whispered, feeling betrayed to the bone.

"What – Allison – No – "

"Don't _lie_ to me, Scott." She pulled away from him and stared. Did she know Scott at all? "Everyone lies to me."

"I love you – "

"How long would you have gone on hiding the truth from me?" Allison demanded. She was shaking and furious. It wasn't that Scott was a monster, but he'd kept it from her, and that was a big thing to conceal from someone you loved.

"I was afraid, I got bit before school started, I didn't know what to do," Scott pleaded. "Please, Allison."

"Does Stiles know?" she asked flatly. Because Stiles was his best friend. She had to know if Scott had lied to him too or if it was just her. Was there something about her that made everyone keep her in the dark?

He flinched. "Only because he figured it out before I did! We were out in the Preserve together that night."

Allison nodded. She saw how it was. Stiles was smart and just off-center enough to have figured out what she hadn't seen. He knew things she hadn't. It didn't make her stupid, no matter how she felt now.

"I want to go home – "

"I'll take you – "

She pushed him away again. "No. Stiles can take me back. If my parents find out I was with you, they'll be furious. My family kills werewolves. They've been lying about it all my life, but I know now. If my aunt thinks you're a werewolf, she'll kill you the way she killed the Hales."

Scott gaped at her. "It's true?"

"Yes. I can't be with you, Scott, not anymore."

"But we love each other," Scott whispered, sounding broken.

The howl that cut through the night paralyzed them both. Scott jerked and took a step toward the exit. "It's the alpha," he groaned. A second howl made him shake. "He's calling me. He's outside!"

He took another step. "Allison, help me." Scott held out his hand.

Allison caught his hand in hers. "What do I do?"

"Don't let me go!"

The alpha howled once more, so loud the windows rattled. Scott threw his head back and shouted, "No!" but his face rippled and changed, his ears stretched into points and razor teeth filled his mouth. He wrenched free, sharp claws tearing at Allison's hand, and ran for the doors, bursting out into the night.

She bolted back toward the auditorium, running into Stiles when she turned a corner.

"Oh my god, oh my god," Stiles babbled. "Where's Scott? What happened?" His eyes caught the bloody lines on Allison's hand as she tried to cradle it close. "Did he – ?"

"He left," Allison said. "I told him I can't be with him now."

"Oh, shit." He pulled her into a desperate hug. She let him, even though she knew she was staining his nice suit along with her dress.

"What did he do? He loves you. Really. It's Allison this, Allison that, Allison, Allison, Allison, twenty-four/seven. I mean if you weren't so awesome it would be sickening," Stiles went on, clearly trying to make her feel better. "Actually, it is, I may barf."

Allison laughed and sobbed at the same time.

~~~

Stiles was trying to guide Allison through the crowd to the doors without anyone seeing her bloody handed when Jackson pushed in front of them.

"Where's Lydia?" Jackson demanded.

"She's your date, assface," Stiles told him. "Why ask me?"

"Because you texted her to come help Allison fix – " Jackson saw the blood on Allison's hand. "Crap."

"I didn't text Lydia," Stiles said slowly. "Come on, I need to get Allison out to my Jeep. She needs a bandage and I've got a medical kit my dad insisted I keep in it."

"Fine, but then we're finding Lydia," Jackson huffed, but he helped push people aside, so they could get out faster.

Stiles' thoughts were flying. Peter had called Scott out. Allison was hurt – her parents were going to kill Scott for that. Derek was MIA or, worse, under Peter's control. Someone had texted Lydia pretending to be him and now she was missing too.

Everything was fucked.

He'd never felt so exposed before as he opened the back of the Jeep and found the medical kit. He muttered while he cleaned the scratches that were more like slashes and bandaged Allison up. The disinfectant must have hurt like a bitch, but all Allison did was stiffen and hiss out a silent breath.

"I told him he had to work on his control. Man, it's not even the full moon, no wonder Derek is always pissed at him."

Jackson jittered next to them, repeatedly texting and trying to call Lydia with no answer. Which scared Stiles even more than Jackson, because Stiles knew what was out there in the dark.

"Did fucking McCall do that?" Jackson asked Allison.

She bit her lip.

"Well, thanks at least for not thinking _I_ did it," Stiles mumbled.

"Oh, I know you didn't, Stinkski," Jackson told him.

Stiles longed, yes, yearned, to punch him in his too perfect face for resurrecting that stupid, horrible mockery of his last name from elementary school. It had stuck for years along with calling Scott _Spot_ until Mrs. Allenby, God bless her, had put her foot down and asked Jackson if he had a learning disability since he couldn't grasp how to pronounce people's proper names. Even Lydia had tittered as Jackson flushed tomato red.

The hate was strong between them even then, but Jackson couldn't bear being embarrassed, and every time he mocked Stiles name after that, Stiles would smile and say _Short Bus_. Which made Jackson loathe even more but shut him up.

Jackson shoved his phone back in his pocket. "You're so obvious about mooning after my girlfriend it's embarrassing even watching you, but I pay attention. You're hopeless, but you're not a crazy stalker. You don't do violent." He looked at the gauze around Allison's wrist and away.

"I could do violent," Stiles protested stupidly.

"Fuck, whatever, shithead. Can we find Lydia now?"

Stiles slammed the medical kit closed and locked the Jeep. He didn't want any couples coming out and getting their freak on in it.

"Fine, sure, any ideas, Jackson?"

"Did she say where she was supposed to meet Stiles?" Allison asked reasonably.

"No."

"Okay, we'll go check the ladies' rooms first," she decided. "Then the girls' locker room."

Stiles had to admit that made sense, but unfortunately, neither option panned out. They came back to the auditorium and stood at the edge of the dancers, looking for Lydia in the crowd. The blinking, shifting lighting effects that looked so good earlier were just annoying now. People kept bumping into them, seeing the white bandage on Allison's wrist and glaring at Stiles. Whispers were running through the crowd; by morning, the whole student body would probably think she'd tried to kill herself over Scott or something equally asinine.

He hated high school.

The buzz of his phone vibrating in his pocket made Stiles jump. He tore it out eagerly and checked the screen. "It's Lydia," he told Allison and Jackson in relief. He accepted the call with a touch. "Heeeeey, Lydia – "

"Stiles!" Scott shouted.

"Scott? What're you doing with Lydia's phone?" he asked. He wanted it to be a stupid question, even as the dominos were falling in his head, and he guessed how screwed they all were.

"You have to come to the lacrosse field," Scott insisted while ignoring his question. "Now!"

"Wait, Scott, what – ?"

The call ended.

"The lacrosse pitch," Stiles said.

"What the fuck is going on?" Jackson yelled and shook Stiles so hard his head snapped back and forward.

Allison slapped him. Jackson froze and stared at her in disbelief.

"Come on," she commanded and they both followed her.

Stiles and Jackson were both panting from trying to keep up with a girl in high heels when they reached the pitch. The lights were on, the white glare surreal against the darkness, all that brightness toothless in the face of the night.

Something, someone, lay crumpled at the center of the empty field. Scott knelt there too. Peter stood above him, long coat rippling in the cold wind.

"Lydia!" Jackson screamed and ran ahead of them.

"There you are," Peter said. He smiled, terrifying and empty, at Stiles. All the burn scars were gone.

"What did you do to her, you bastard!?" Jackson shouted at Scott and tackled him, punching him wildly.

Stiles looked down at Lydia and swallowed hard. No wonder Jackson was going insane. Lydia was limp, her tiny dress and skin both slashed open, bleeding into the winter grass. Her eyes stared glassily at nothing and Stiles couldn't tell if she was still breathing or not.

"I couldn't stop him!" Scott yelled at Jackson. The two of them tumbled over each other, smeared in mud and grass, Scott trying to get away from Jackson's infuriated onslaught. Stiles was sort of impressed; he hadn't realized Jackson cared about anyone except himself enough to react so strongly.

Peter held up Lydia's phone. "Scott lent me her phone so I could get you out here." His smile widened as he studied Allison, who stood at Stiles' shoulder. "And you brought me a present. How wonderful."

"Leave Allison alone," Stiles said. His voice shook.

"I don't think so. I was going to use you to persuade Scott to help me, but I think Miss Argent will be an even better incentive."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Stiles muttered to himself.

Scott had subdued Jackson and pinned him to the grass. It was that werewolf strength, because Scott had always been abysmal at wrestling or anything else athletic until this year.

"Scott, bring Mr. Whittemore here," Peter ordered.

"Scott, don't," Stiles said.

"Scott, would you like to see Miss Argent in the same state as Miss Martin?"

Scott dragged Jackson to his feet and frog-marched him over. Stiles saw that it was Scott in there, it wasn't Peter mind-controlling him. Scott was too afraid of what Peter would do to Allison if he didn't obey. It froze something in Stiles for the first time, because it was Jackson and they hated Jackson, but what if it was Mrs. Allenby or Tara or Stiles himself? What if it was Stiles' dad or Scott's mom weighed against _Allison?_

He didn't know what Scott would do.

He'd known Scott since kindergarten. They were brothers in all but blood. But this Scott was a stranger.

Unless Stiles never really knew him at all and this Scott had been the real one all along.

Abruptly, Peter flipped Lydia's phone into Stiles' fumbling hands. He tore Jackson from Scott's grasp and slashed his claws into the slope of muscle between shoulder and neck. He tore deep and tore away. Jackson screamed in pain and Peter raised his gaze and then his face and smiled at Stiles and Allison, sharp white, holding up his hand edged in crimson. Careless, he tossed Jackson down, ignoring him as he crawled to Lydia's side.

"You fucker," Stiles said.

"You're not screaming, Miss Argent," Peter said gently, "so I must assume you know what I am."

Stiles jerked and stared at Allison. She was awfully calm. She knew.

Jackson had gathered Lydia's body into his arms. "I have to get her help." No one moved to stop him as he staggered to his feet and carried her toward the school, yelling for help.

"We need to move this along now," Peter said.

"Why'd you let them go?" Stiles demanded suspiciously.

"I need more betas." Peter waved a hand. "They'll turn or not. I have more important matters on my mind."

But he hadn't bitten Jackson, Stiles thought, or Lydia. Or had he? Werewolves like Peter and Derek moved so fast. Had he missed something? No, the blood was on Peter's claws. But maybe he'd bitten Lydia before.

Scott took an uncertain step toward Allison.

"I'd meant to use Miss Martin to persuade you to help me, Stiles," Peter purred. "I want your help finding my nephew. Derek is all I have, you understand."

"Bullshit," Stiles called. "You probably killed him too."

"Derek is stubborn and soft-hearted," Peter agreed. "After you ran away though, he saw that we're still family." He switched his attention to Allison and snarled. "All the family we have left thanks the Argents. One of your hunters took him."

"Not my circus, not my monkey," Stiles said with a wince inside. Even if Derek had defected to the Dark Side, he'd saved Stiles and Scott before. The idea of the Argents, the people who murdered his family, having him was horrible. "Besides, I don't know where he is or how to find him."

Stiles gritted his teeth and didn't look at the blood soaking into the grass and dirt. He didn't want to help fucking Peter, not after what he'd done, but he didn't want to abandon Derek.

He really had no idea where Derek was though or how to find him. He'd already have done that if he could.

"Well, then, I'm afraid this is the end for Miss Argent. Sorry, my dear," Peter said.

Allison's chin came up and she took a step forward, ignoring Scott, who whined and tried to get between her and Peter.

"I know where he is."

 _"What!?"_ Stile squawked. Allison knew? How could Allison know? What was going on!? What next? The sun setting in the east, pigs flying, in was out and out was in?

"My aunt has him."

Peter cocked his head. He was listening to her heartbeat. His nostrils flared, taking in her scent, Stiles guessed.

Peter reached with a clawed hand and delicately lifted a strand of dark hair away from Allison's face. "You do."

"Let Stiles and Scott go and I'll take you there," Allison said.

"Allison!" Scott exclaimed.

Peter snapped his fingers. "Phones."

Shaking a little, Stiles handed over Lydia's phone. Peter crushed it in his hand, then Scott's, then Allison's. He held out his hand and smirked. "Your phone too, Stiles."

Stiles took out his phone and proffered it. Peter caught his arm and pulled him close, close enough he could feel the warm damp of Peter's breath through his cuff on the skin of his inner wrist.

"I could give you the Bite."

"Let go," Stiles demanded and tugged his arm uselessly.

"Tell me you don't want it," Peter crooned. "All the power Scott has now. You'd be so much better at this than him and you know it. You could be first line, you could make your father proud at your games – " Oh, God, Peter had to have been listening and watching Stiles to have picked up on how much he'd wanted to be at his game and playing with his dad there, being the son his father wanted for once. " – You could be the one the pretty girls notice. You could be like me."

"I don't want it," Stiles said.

"You're lying."

"I don't want to be like you."

Peter studied him then let him go with a shrug. "Another time, then."

"You're just leaving?" Stiles demanded in disbelief.

"Places to go, people to kill. You know how it is," Peter replied. "Come along, Miss Argent. I may have need of you if Kate has been free with the Mountain Ash."

What the hell was Mountain Ash? Other than a good thing because it made Peter need Allison alive. Another thing to find out if Stiles lived through the night. Stiles needed to know these things, because now it wasn't just Scott. Lydia and Jackson might be werewolves too, thanks to Peter.

He wrapped his fingers around his wrist where Peter had come so close and shivered. That was almost him.

"I'm going with you!" Scott declared.

Peter rolled his eyes. "If you insist."

There were ambulance sirens approaching the school.

Peter took Allison's arm and looped it through his elbow in a mock courtly gesture. Scott looked wildly between Stiles and the werewolf departing with Allison, then ran after them.

Stiles scooped up his phone where Peter dropped it, then ran for the parking lot and his Jeep.

~~~

The illegal police scanner burped static and Chris looked up from the book he'd been forcing himself to read. It was something to do while he sat up waiting for Allison to come home.

He dropped the book to the floor, uncaring of how the pages were bent. Every Hunter memorized the local police's radio codes. The sequences of numbers issued by the police dispatcher were as clear as words: Send officers, animal control and an ambulance to the high school. A teenage girl had been attacked, a boy was wounded, possibly by an animal.

Chris grabbed his phone and found Allison's number on speed dial, right beneath Victoria's. An insipid recording told him that the number he was calling was currently unavailable.

"Vicky!" he yelled up the stairs. Victoria rushed out of their bedroom.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something's happened at the high school. I can't get through to Allison. I'm going there."

She rushed down the stairs and plucked out a piece of paper from the side table by the door. "I'll call the boy she went with."

Chris left her with her phone in hand and went down stairs to the gun room. He strapped a back-up gun to his ankle, a knife, and grabbed an extra box of ammunition for the pistol he carried in a waist holster. A sniper rifle, a crossbow and Mountain Ash bolts, and a spotlight went into a duffel and over his shoulder as he rushed up the stairs.

Victoria shook her head at him. She hadn't reached the boy.

"Stay here in case Allison comes back," Chris said.

"Should I call Kate?" Victoria asked. She'd opened the coat closet and drawn out a shotgun and ammo and was loading it.

"Not yet."

The garage door scraped the top of the SUV's cab as Chris gunned it out onto the street. The SUV had a scanner installed too and he tuned it to the Sheriff's Department frequency with one hand as he sped through the falsely quiet streets.

An ambulance squealed onto the road ahead of him as he approached the high school, siren wailing, and a baby-blue Jeep lurched onto the street after it.

Chris had watched his baby girl get in that Jeep only hours ago.

He shoved his foot down on the gas and careened after it.

He ran two red lights following the ambulance and the Jeep, but he couldn't do anything if he slammed head on into the side of a semi-trailer, so he lost minutes at least once, and pulled into the emergency room parking lot of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital in time to see the Stilinski boy pile out of his haphazardly parked Jeep and run inside.

Chris slammed to a stop and left the SUV blocking in the Jeep before running inside.

A security guard took an alarmed step forward as Chris came in, but Chris ignored him and headed for the check in desk.

"The girl that was just brought in," he demanded. "Who was she?"

The receptionist shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't give out that kind of information – "

"Look, I just need to know if that's my daughter," Chris insisted, leaning in close over the desk top.

"It's not Allison," a voice spoke behind him.

Chris spun. It was the Stilinski boy and there were blood stains on his shirt front, but they weren't dangerous amounts, though he looked sick and shocky.

He stalked toward the boy, who back-pedaled into the corridor beyond the reception area.

"Where is she?"

The kid held his hands up.

"Where is Allison!?" Chris snapped and caught the kid by the shoulders, driving him back into the wall and lifting him off his feet. The kid's head head bounced off the wall and his eyelids fluttered down, so that Chris feared he'd made the stupid brat faint before he could get any answers from him. But the kid recovered and pushed at Chris uselessly.

"I don't know!" he answered. "I don't know, okay, she went with Peter and Scott went after them."

Scott. Scott McCall. Chris should have killed the little shit when he caught him fooling around with Allison in the back seat of their car. Now his baby girl was alone with a crazed alpha and an obsessed beta.

"What did he do to her?" Chris demanded and shook the kid again.

"Nothing! It was Peter! He tore Lydia up and wanted me to find out where Derek is, but I didn't know, and Allison said she did!" the kid squeaked.

"Derek. Derek Hale and Peter… " Chris reared back and let go of the kid, who slid down the wall and nearly fell. "Peter Hale. Peter Hale is the alpha?"

Peter Hale was the alpha and he had Allison. Chris barely held on to enough control not to kill the kid in front of him, who glared at him fearlessly.

"Do you know what he'll do to an Argent?"

"Probably what he thinks an Argent deserves for burning him and his entire family alive, little kids and babies included! Especially if your cray-cray sister has done anything to Derek!" The kid was poking at Chris' chest now, too righteous and angry to be afraid any longer.

"What the hell does Kate have to do with this?"

"She killed the Hales and she has Derek now." The kid's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Allison said she had him. And Peter's crazy, he's so crazy he killed his niece, so what do you think he wants to do to the bitch that lit the match?"

Chris lurched back another step. A scuff made him turn his head. The security guard from the entrance was at the end of the corridor glaring at him.

_Kate, what did you do?_

The kid flicked the security guard off and straightened his jacket. "If you want to know where Allison is, figure out where your sister would hide Derek."

Kate had rented a farmhouse. Somewhere isolated enough she could target shoot, she'd claimed. Somewhere too far away for anyone to hear anything. Chris hadn't been out there, but he had the address.

He brushed past the guard and ignored the kid's foot steps behind him.

~~~

Jackson could hear Allison's father and Stiles out in the corridor. He glanced at the nurse taping a bandage over the bite on his shoulder. She didn't even look up. She didn't hear them.

"Do you know what happened to Lydia?" he asked as Stiles laid into Argent with more balls than Jackson had given him credit for having. "The girl I came here with?"

The nurse's hands smoothed the tape and the bandage down. She swallowed before patting his other shoulder. "They took her into surgery, honey. Do you know her?"

"Yes," he said.

"I can't tell you any details, but I heard the Dr. Vandenberg calling Dr. Patel to come in. Dr. Patel is an excellent cosmetic surgeon."

Jackson stared at her, feeling at a loss. "What does that mean?"

She pressed her lips together, then said, "In triage you give care to those who have a chance to survive first. In a case like your friend, the doctors worry about keeping someone alive first. If they're worried about scarring, they're not worried about her dying. Please don't tell anyone I told you that."

Jackson tried to imagine Lydia, perfect, in control, exquisite Lydia, scarred and couldn't manage it. It was too much to bear. That fucker that attacked her had done something to him too. Jackson could feel it in his veins, in his muscles, a burn under his skin, like the itch of healing but all through him. That bastard had control of McCall and he'd left Lydia on the ground like a broken doll.

Jackson was going to kill him.

He heard Argent striding out and Stiles behind him. Stiles was going to follow Argent to find Allison and that bastard. Peter. He was the one who knocked Jackson out in the video store.

"I'll be right back, hon," the nurse said and stepped past the curtain.

Jackson leaped up, grabbed his shirt and jacket and slipped out, running after Stiles, who was following Argent.

"Fuck!" Stiles yelled when Jackson caught up with him. "What're you doing, Jackhole?"

"I'm coming with you," Jackson said.

Stiles gaped at him, mouth open, until Argent's SUV tore out of the parking lot.

"Fuck, dumbshit," Jackson told him, "come on." Hopefully, Stilinski's piece of junk could keep Argent in sight, even if it could never overtake that monster of an SUV.

~~~

The electricity buzzed through him, but Derek was beyond even twitching. He hadn't eaten, hadn't even had any water in too long. A werewolf's healing was fueled by an incredibly fast, efficient metabolism. He'd reached the point where he had no more reserves than a human. The wounds Kate inflicted now didn't heal.

He'd seen the way her eyes brightened when a Taser burn lingered and the cigarettes which she put out on his chest left burns that stayed bloody, blackened and raw.

He looked away when she began taking pictures.

"Smile for the camera, Derek," she coaxed. "Show me those pretty eyes. Got to get that flare."

When she'd taken all the pictures she wanted, Kate set up a video camera and recorded everything.

"Special memories, sweetie. I want to remember everything when you're gone."

It wouldn't be much longer, he told himself. Kate would miscalculate, and he'd die. It would be over for him, he'd be able to finally stop. It wasn't like he didn't deserve it for condemning his family by trusting her. Part of him knew that sixteen – fifteen when she approached him – was a child, that she'd been ten years older than him, and that made him a victim, but he couldn't forgive himself. Peter's absolution was too tainted to accept.

In the end, what Peter did was Derek's fault too.

He'd die. Peter would kill Kate – Derek felt no guilt for hoping that – and turn more people. Peter would pull Scott into his orbit, force him to kill too. He'd build some warped approximation of pack, terrorize Beacon Hills until more Argents or the Calaveras or some other Hunter Clan finally poured in enough bodies to wipe out the Hales forever.

Scott would die at Argent hands, but Derek hoped Stiles might survive. He was a brat who had made Derek's life harder, but he was smart and brave and loyal.

He tried to keep one foot on the bar of the gate she'd manacled him too, but Kate had burned the soles of both and he couldn't bear it long and ended hanging from his wrists, the pain in his shoulder joints so deep they felt ruined as the rest of him.

All of that wasn't as awful as when she tugged his jeans down, fondled and licked him, and shoved her fingers inside him until she drew blood with her nails. Derek was almost grateful for pain and the weakness then, the exhaustion that trumped autonomic responses to the stimulation.

He kept his head up to watch Kate when she was in the basement, afraid though the emotion was dulled now, of what she'd do next. He only let it hang once she'd gone upstairs, alerted by an alarm on her phone.

His eyes had fallen shut when Kate rushed down the stairs in a fury. He tried to lick his cracked lips and ask what was wrong, but his mouth was too dry.

Derek watched her unplug the fence charger with a jerk. His body spasmed when the current stopped. It didn't make any difference. He was too weak to tear his way free of the chains even without electricity coursing through him. He doubted he could shift far enough to bring his claws out.

Kate pressed close to him. Her nose wrinkled as she reached up. "Ugh, you stink." Derek felt stupid; it took until one of his arms fell for him to realize she was letting him loose.

He lost his balance, came down on his raw feet, and croaked, too dehydrated to scream at the agony.

"Does it hurt, Derek?" Kate asked. "Does it burn like your family burned?"

He glared at her.

"Get up. Get up. Your animal of an uncle has my niece," Kate told him. "Maybe he knows what you did. Maybe he wants you back, so he can kill you himself." That seemed to give her some vicious sort of satisfaction.

Kate picked up a shotgun and aimed it at Derek.

"Up the stairs."

He limped his way to them and up, leaving bloody prints behind him, but healing with each step. His healing swept through him like a fever, so hot the cool air of the night-time basement steamed off his skin. He could stand straight and use his arms and hands again by the top of the stairs, but it was at the expense of his body consuming his own muscle mass. He glimpsed himself in the black mirror of a kitchen window, all haggard hollows, ghost pale and gaunt.

"Don't try to run," Kate warned him. She prodded his back with the shotgun. "Out onto the porch."

Derek squinted and made out Peter standing at the edge of the farmhouse's outside light. He had Allison Argent, dressed in a bloody formal dress, snugged in front him, one hand curled round the column of her throat, claws pricking her skin, ready to tear it open.

"Well, nephew, you look terrible," Peter remarked as Derek shuffled out.

Somewhere in the darkness, out in the open field, Derek heard Scott stumbling, trying to sneak closer. It was pathetic. Peter had to know he was there. Kate probably heard Scott crunching through the frost-crackled grass.

Kate pushed the muzzle of the shotgun to the back of Derek's head. "The shells in this are filled with Mountain Ash pellets and wolfsbane. But even if they were normal, not even a werewolf will survive having their head blown off."

"You kill him," Peter replied, "I kill her."

"Mexican stand-off." Kate came around Derek's side, keeping the shotgun in close contact, dragging it from behind to his temple. She had a wild grin, smelled of adrenaline and aggression. Despite the threat to Allison, she was enjoying the danger, the risk, the challenge of facing down an insane alpha werewolf. That spark of defiance had been what drew him to her once.

The skin of his feet had finally knitted together. Derek let out a breath. He could move now. A large vehicle skidded into the farm's drive. The headlights made Peter's eyes flare. It braked, the taillights flared bright and red, and the lights went out. A door opened, the sound loud in the loaded quiet of the confrontation. No interior light came on. A hunter, then, who didn't want to be silhouetted.

Derek met the scarlet eyes across the yard from him. Peter knew, of course.

"Is that you, Chris?" Kate shouted.

"Come join us," Peter called, a thin layer of amusement over a rage so hot and huge Derek could feel it through the frayed remnant of the pack bond they'd once shared, if only because his own matched it some days.

Chris Argent, rifle in hand, walked down the drive until he was close enough Allison could see him.

"Daddy," she whispered.

"No closer," Peter warned, pricking her neck. Tiny beads of red welled up. Her racing heart ratcheted higher.

"I'll put a wolfsbane bullet through your head," Chris threatened as he brought the rifle to his shoulder.

"My claws will still rip her throat out," Peter replied. He still looked human, but his fangs were out. The light glittered off the ivory curves. "Maybe she won't die though." He smiled terrifyingly. "Maybe she'll turn." He didn't raise his voice. "Scott would love that. Young werewolves in love. It could be beautiful."

"No," Scott whispered from near the corner of the porch, too low for the humans to hear. Close enough to tackle Kate. But Scott didn't care about stopping Kate or saving Derek. Allison was all that mattered to him.

"Don't you dare!" Kate snarled, finally upset instead of thrilled. Maybe somewhere in her twisted heart she did love Allison.

Gravel crackled as another vehicle coasted into the drive, lightless, slow enough it rolled to a stop with only a tap to the brake. A single flare of light to its rear, but it was enough Derek glimpsed two figures backlit inside Stiles' Jeep. He didn't even wonder why the boy was here. Scott was. Who the other person was Derek didn't care.

"Why are you doing this?" Chris asked. He was playing for time, waiting for an opening to take the shot if Peter shifted his hand from Allison's throat. Derek frowned at the way Peter stood. He had one hand at Allison's throat, but instead of wrapping around her, his other was behind her.

"Put the gun down and I'll tell you," Peter said reasonably.

"Stop listening to him, Chris," Kate shouted. Shrill. Unexpectedly uneasy. Did Chris not know?

"Shut up, Kate," Chris gritted out.

Peter laughed at them.

"Say what you want," Chris said.

"I want her to say she's sorry." He walked Allison closer to Kate and Derek. There was still something strange about the way Peter held her. His free hand seemed to be at the small of her back.

"Say you're sorry for killing my family, Kate."

"I'm sorry, I'm so, so, soooo sorry," Kate sing-song replied, sugar sweet and poisonous. "I'm sorry I didn't get all of you." She jabbed at Derek with the shotgun and didn't note the steps he took away from her because of it. Almost within reach of Allison, just a few steps away. He flexed his toes, feeling the cold earth beneath them, ready to move if he got a chance.

"Kate!" Allison cried. "There were children!" The horror on her face was unmistakable. Somehow, she had avoided absorbing the Argents' hate so far. Kate had played at innocent; she'd taught Derek to recognize the real thing from Allison now. He seen her crying on the stairs when Kate began torturing him. He'd heard her throwing up. She'd left him there, but… she was a scared child. If he could fall for Peter's promises because he was Derek's only family, then how could he expect her to go against someone she'd loved all her life? He felt sorry for her and the way her life was being turned inside out.

"Dumb animals," Kate dismissed them.

Chris looked at her. The outdoor light washed all the color out his eyes. "You broke the Code?"

"Fuck the Code," Kate said. "The Code is for pussies like you, so you can pretend you aren't killers."

"I hate to agree with her," Peter murmured, "but it's true. All of you are the same. All of you are guilty."

He shoved Allison forward, claws lifting from her throat instead of tearing, and dived as Chris pulled the trigger and Kate pulled the shotgun up, discharging into the air to keep from hitting Allison. Another gun fired and Kate screeched in fury, diving away. Derek caught Allison round the waist, spun her away and off the porch into Scott's arms. The third gun was in Peter's hands, a massive handgun, and Derek wondered where he'd got it, but it didn't matter. Peter had missed Kate and thrown it down. Few werewolves would use a gun; fewer liked them, but Peter had always been tricksy.

Derek spun back, claws out, but hesitated, unsure whether to attack Kate or Peter. Chris methodically fired at Peter, but Peter had shifted into his hulking alpha form and moved faster than Chris could aim.

Kate's shotgun boomed over and over as she tried to back away from Peter.

Scott came over the porch railing and tackled Peter.

Peter pitched Scott away. He crashed back first into a porch support, snapping it in two with a cracking groan from the roof above. The porch light flickered off. Everything stilled in the abrupt darkness for a breath.

Derek could still see. So could Peter and Scott. Werewolves were nocturnal predators by and large. Their eyes were made to see in the dark. It gave them an advantage now; none of the humans were equipped with night vision goggles.

Derek crouched, completely still, listening for his prey. The stink of burnt gunpowder and wolfsbane overwhelmed anything his nose could tell him. Delicate chemo-signals and a bloodhound's acute sense of smell weren't useful in a firefight. Werewolf healing meant his sensitive hearing recovered from gunshot induced tinnitus faster than human, though.

He rolled his neck to loosen his muscles and pushed himself to shift enough that dark fur grew swiftly to hide his pale skin, fangs and claws out, closing his eyes so they didn't give him away.

Peter ghosted through the darkness barely disturbing the air. He had let go of the shift, sacrificing bulk for stealth, bright alpha eyes hidden away.

Kate knelt on one knee just inside the door to the kitchen. She breathed through her mouth, struggling to keep from giving herself away. Derek could hear her heart race. She was fingering the shotgun. Had she lost track of how many times she fired? Did she need to reload? He hadn't seen her pocket any extra ammunition.

Chris was quartering toward the corner of the porch, where the appliance lights were enough to silhouette anyone in the doorway and he could take a shot if Peter went in after Kate.

Hunters. Even without speaking they were coordinated through years of training. They were trying to catch Peter in a crossfire.

Derek debated warning him, but Peter was sliding down low. He didn't need to be told; his ears told him the same things Derek's did.

Allison was behind Kate's truck, tucked away with Stiles and another boy, all of them whispering furiously. Allison wanted to help her father, the other kid wanted to get the hell out of there – smart kid – and call the cops. Stiles was vehemently against that.

 _"You think I want my dad to come out here and get clawed up or shot by your whackjob auntie!?"_ Stiles demanded louder than before. _"Not happening, douchewad. Let Cray-Cray Kate and the Big Bad Wolf duke it out on their own!"_

_"Fine, let's get out of here then! Think your piece of crap Jeep can do that?"_

_"I'm not going without my dad,"_ Allison insisted at the same time Stiles hissed, _"I'm not leaving without Scott."_

Scott was – Scott was cleverer than Derek had thought. He was sneaking through the house, coming in behind Kate. But was he after her on his own or was he obeying Peter? Or was he after Peter, under the impression he could kill the alpha and regain his humanity?

He shouldn't have told Scott that stupid folktale. It was as ridiculous as the footprint one and Scott had latched onto it instead of accepting his changed state. The idiot was going to get himself killed going up against either Kate or Peter.

The crash of Scott tripping on something made Derek bite back a groan at Scott's ineptitude. No time to regret Peter's horrible choice in betas. He launched himself through the kitchen window in a crash of glass. A bullet splintered the window sill beside him. His foot hit the sink faucet and started it gushing.

Kate spun on her knee, aiming the shotgun at Scott pointblank. Derek tackled him as the shotgun boomed. It lit the kitchen like a flashbulb as Peter, once more in alpha shift, came through the doorway, eyes burning. He jerked as Chris' bullets hit him from behind but kept coming.

Everything went dark again. Actinic afterimages smeared Derek's vision. He hit the floor with Scott under him and rolled. They hit a table leg and sent kitchen chairs skidding over the old wood floor.

Peter roared in anger and agony.

"Get out and run!" he yelled at Scott. "Get to Allison and Stiles!" Maybe that would shake Scott into obeying.

Kate fell onto her back and racked the shotgun.

Peter loomed above her. He swept the shotgun out of her hands. She scrambled back on elbows and heels and ass. Chris was sprinting up the porch steps, cursing and dodging as its roof came down with a crack.

Scott tore himself free of Derek and leaped at Peter as Peter's claws came down. Instead of her throat, Peter tore across Kate's chest. He threw Scott off his back into the refrigerator. The door broke off and it rocked and fell on its side. The contents spilled across the floor as Kate shrieked and groped blindly for the lost shotgun.

Derek stared at Kate's bloodied torso in shock, but Peter had his hand locked around Scott's neck and was shaking him, holding him high off his feet, his other hand cocked back to plunge into Scott's chest and kill him.

On his best day, Derek had never been strong enough to take out an alpha. He'd never wanted to either. He had no chance tonight. But Peter had killed Laura and he was going to kill Scott, who had no place in the world of hunters and wolves until he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Scott was just a stupid kid. He didn't deserve to die for Argent hate or Hale revenge.

He growled and roared his challenge and went for Peter.

He was going to die here.

Better doing something than being helpless at Kate's hands, though.

Peter flung Scott through the wall with a crash that brought down more of the porch. Scott landed limp and unconscious on the ground beyond it.

Derek slashed Peter deep and bit back a cry as Peter turned his claws on him. This wasn't a play spar, this time Peter meant to kill him. Wounds from an alpha were harder to heal even if he hadn't been weak from Kate's torture. Derek ignored the pain and tore into Peter again, shoving them both into the stove, slipping and sliding over the spilled contents of the fridge.

Peter skidded on a bottle of mustard and Derek almost laughed at the utter ridiculousness of it. Instead, he took the opportunity and went for a gutting strike. Peter flipped away from him and caught Derek's arm, using it to throw him through a broken wall and back outside.

Chris' rifle barked from the porch. Derek didn't know if the hunter was shooting at him or Peter. He struggled to hands and knees, still half stunned.

Peter loomed over him, horrific and twisted beyond anything Derek had ever seen. The shape reflected the soul and Peter's was monstrous and ruined.

"You'd choose that whelp over your only family?" Peter growled at him, distorted and thick.

Chris was reloading. Scott was still trying to find his feet, bleeding from the neck, and helpless to help if he even would have. Stiles had crept forward to kneel by Scott's side and the other boy had Allison in a wrestling hold to keep her from running forward into the fight. Kate was crawling out of the wreckage, clutching the shotgun.

"Kill him, Scott!" Kate shouted. "Kill him and you'll be human again!"

Stiles looked down at something under his hand. He picked it up. It didn't matter.

Derek paid no more attention. He lifted his head to glare up at Peter. He wouldn't die bowed down.

"You killed Laura."

"Must it be you or me, nephew?" Peter asked, almost sad.

In the end, Derek couldn't forgive, no matter what magic Nurse Jennifer had done, because Peter wasn't sorry.

"And you'll always choose you," Derek condemned him.

Derek lurched into a crouch, summoning the last energy he had to attack again, knowing the effort was doomed.

The shot deafened Derek. Peter lurched and lifted his hand to his chest and the gaping wound there, blood blooming. His eyes widened and blazed brighter as he looked past Derek.

"Really, Stiles?" Peter said. The horrific hole blown in his chest was already healing,

Stiles had the gun Peter had lost, a handgun that he held aimed at Peter from a professional shooting stance, one hand bracing the wrist of the one holding it. It was the pistol Peter had abandoned in favor of his own claws. Whatever caliber bullets it fired, they weren't wolfsbane loads. Why would they be? Peter had meant to use it on hunters not wolves.

Stiles began to shake, no doubt realizing the gun wouldn't stop Peter. The other boy yelled, "Shoot it, shoot it again!"

But the gun clicked empty when Stiles pulled the trigger again.

Derek surged up. This was his last chance. His claws plunged through Peter's neck and he drove them deep until the tips scraped and caught on the spinal cord. He caught a vertebra and ripped out everything forward from it as they crashed to the earth. Blood sprayed over his face. Flesh cleaved and everything in him hurt as Derek tore Peter's windpipe open. He had to do this, brutal and bloody and stomach turning as it was; he had to do so much damage so fast that even Peter's alpha power couldn't heal him. The only difference between Derek and a true wolf fighting for primacy were his hands; he wasn't shifted far enough to use his teeth.

He knelt on Peter with one hand flat on Peter's chest as he kept clawing the wound at his throat open, slicing down to bone over and over. He felt the last breath go out of him, bubbling and horrible and this must have been what Laura sounded like – He felt Peter go slack.

Peter's eyes flickered. The red glow dimmed from his irises, a lantern flickering out.

The alpha power hit Derek like tsunami, a crash, a flood, a rush that threatened to destroy everything in its path. It came with the taste of blood in his mouth, ash in his nose, and it burned; it burned like Peter burned, like his mother burned; it felt like terror and betrayal, like Laura felt as it was torn from her on Peter's claws. Only a dimming memory of how the spark had passed from Hale alpha to heir naturally before remained. All that was left was agony.

Derek tipped his face to the dark and the missing moon and howled as his entire world burned bloody.

He howled his pain, his sorrow, his triumph, his relief, his horror and loneliness and guilt and his grief, because Peter had been his last family and he'd killed him.

When he could move again, when his wounds had knit together as if they'd never been, Derek stood. He clenched his fists until his claws retracted. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the strength in them greater than it had ever been, and reached for his anchor, the anger that had kept him human when an animal would have run and mercifully forgot. He pushed the shift down, fur falling away to leave bare skin fever hot in the cold night air. He gritted his teeth until the fangs withdrew.

He could feel Scott. Not his beta, not Hale blood, but a Hale bite. Instinct wanted him to make Scott _his_ beta. The alpha power surged and ached for pack. He could feel the other boy, just turning and weak. Instinct wanted him too.

The clack of Kate racking her shotgun made him turn his head at last.

The red glaze of his alpha eyes turned the blood disfiguring her black. Allison was holding her up, but Kate was fighting to aim the shotgun at him. He watched calmly. He could move faster than she could aim. He could take the shotgun from her just as Peter had and finish what Peter hadn't.

It made him smile.

"Holy shit," Stiles whispered. "Dude, your eyes."

"I'm the alpha now," Derek told him.

Kate's arms wavered, blood loss and pain weakening her. Chris edged to her side and pushed the shotgun down.

"Dad, she needs a hospital."

"After I've killed it," Kate gasped.

Chris looked at Derek, eyes pale as the moon, expression folded into something Derek couldn't read. His heart rate was high, but steady. He kept his rifle aimed at Derek, but his body gave away none of the tiny signs that he meant to pull the trigger.

"He could have killed her," Derek said with a nod at Allison. Peter had pulled his claws when he pushed her between Kate and Derek.

Maybe he'd just wanted Kate to kill Allison instead, to feel that hell on top of losing her, and know it was because of what she'd done before.

He preferred to believe Peter had still had something good in him, that he wouldn't kill Allison because she wasn't guilty of anything but her name.

Chris glared but nodded. He had to realize it was true.

"Do we have a truce?"

Derek rolled his shoulders. "I never came after anyone." He looked right at Kate. "Innocent or guilty."

"You're guilty," Kate hissed. "You're all monsters."

Chris wrenched the shotgun from her hands. "Shut up, Kate."

Derek could still feel the power boiling in him. He knew he could move so fast everyone in the yard would be dead before Chris could fire his first bullet. Peter's mistake was playing games. Part of him wanted to do it. He could cripple the Argent family, kill everyone who knew he'd become alpha, and disappear somewhere to build his own pack without the threat of hunters finding him again.

Chris and Kate? He wouldn't cry for either of them. They had blood on their hands, too much to ever forgive. But... he'd have to kill Allison so she wouldn't come after him to get revenge. Which meant killing Scott, too, and that would mean killing Stiles too, and whoever that other boy was. No. His stomach turned at the prospect of all that death. Moreover, there was something about Allison, maybe her scent, that tickled at his instincts, insisting he keep her alive, that somehow, she belonged. There was something right about Allison that Kate had never been, though it wasn't attraction.

It wouldn't be worth it either, Derek knew; it would destroy something inside him. He'd be worse than Peter. His mother wouldn't know him if he did that. Werewolves were predators, not killers, not monsters.

He made himself relax enough that Chris could see it, even with human eyes in the shitty light spilling from the interior light from the broken refrigerator in the wrecked kitchen. "Truce," he said.

Chris nodded. "You keep McCall away from my daughter and we'll leave you alone. We follow the Code." _We hunt those who hunt us._ Hypocrites. Hunters swarmed like hornets if _wolves_ hunted those who hunted _them_. Chris would only be waiting for the first excuse to take down Derek or anyone in any pack he made.

But he would, at least, wait.

"Like hell, truce!" Kate yelled. "I'll finish what I started – "

Chris jerked her away from Allison's arms and shoved the muzzle of his rifle under her chin. "If you do, I'll put you down."

"You wouldn't kill your little sister, Chrissy," Kate said.

"If it meant saving Allison, I would," he told her coldly. "You've already broken the Code. You admitted it in front of us all. Derek would be justified in demanding your death."

Justified, but he knew Chris wouldn't allow it.

"Bastard," Kate said, but subsided into Allison's arms again. Her wounds were sapping even her determination.

"Allison," Chris said, "get her to her truck and take her back to the house. Victoria can stitch you up, Kate."

Allison nodded a little tremulously.

"Keys in my pocket, sweetheart," Kate mumbled to her, stumbling as Allison guided her to where Kate's truck sat, amazingly without bullet holes.

"Are you sure she shouldn't go to the hospital?" Stiles asked.

"I'm sure we can't afford the questions that would be asked," Chris said tiredly. He gestured at the porch, half fallen in, the hole in the kitchen wall and the destruction inside. "I'll get some guys out here in the morning to fix everything up."

"Yeah, wow, that's gonna take more than some spackle and paint."

Derek glanced at him and had a thought because he would never trust a hunter again. "Stiles."

"Yeah?" Stiles was wide-eyed and pale. Scott stood beside him but utterly oblivious, all his attention on Allison.

"Wipe down that gun."

Stiles mouth dropped open. He looked at the gun he still held limply. "Oh my God. I shot him."

"Take Scott and your friend and get out here. Wipe the gun and get rid of it."

He might be annoying, loudmouthed, and have the self-preservation instinct of a lemming, but Stiles was anything but stupid. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Chris. Good. He'd figured out it would be a pointless risk to leave a fired weapon with his prints behind for the hunters to squirrel away and use against him if it became convenient.

"Gotcha."

"I should go with Allison," Scott said, proving he hadn't been paying any attention to anyone else.

Chris aimed his rifle at Scott. "You will stay away from Allison. Truce or not, come near her and I will put you down."

Stiles tugged on Scott's sleeve. "Dude, come on. We need to be like a wishbone and split."

Scott looked longingly at Allison as she climbed into the driver's side of the big truck. It started with a heavy growl and jerked as she put it in gear. When she was gone, Scott finally allowed Stiles to drag him back to the Jeep and the newly turned wolf waiting there. Derek would have to find out who he was.

When they were gone Derek looked at Chris. Chris looked back at him.

"I follow the Code," Chris said. "I can't make anyone else follow it."

Derek didn't expect even that much. "I know."

Chris gestured to Peter's body. "I can take care of this if you want."

Derek thought about it. He didn't want Peter in the family cemetery. Wouldn't dare bury him there anyway with the attention on him from Scott and Stiles digging up Laura's body. He couldn't leave the body here and he couldn't stomach taking Peter into the forest, dismembering him and leaving the pieces for the scavengers.

Peter's disappearance was already causing problems with the lawyers and the care facility scrambling to cover their asses.

"Take him back to the care home."

Chris considered that. "It would be better if any search for him stopped." He hesitated. "It would send a message to other hunters that the trouble here is done if I took the traditional measures."

"Cut him in two, you mean," Derek rasped.

Chris grimaced.

"Do it," Derek told him, "if it will keep other hunters away."

He left Chris walking to his SUV and went around the house to come in the same way Scott had – without tripping on anything. He found what remained of his clothes and his wallet and car keys in the basement and took them.

Chris had a sword lifted over Peter's body when Derek came out again. He held it over his head and brought it down in an arc. It cut Peter half way in two. It took two more blows to finish the job. The tip of the long blade lodged in the dirt each time, so Chris had to wrestle it loose. Derek watched wordlessly.

When Chris brought out a can of gasoline and began dousing the two pieces of the body, Derek turned away and left the him and the farmhouse yard behind, disappearing into the farthest reaches of the Preserve he could reach.

As he went, he shed his clothes, bursting through and slicing them away with his own claws, the shift from beta to alpha form a roar in his blood, the night bloody red with rage and thirst and hunger. He fought for control against the instinct that insisted he turn back, find his enemy, rend and kill.

It poured over and through the anger that he'd used to anchor himself for years and Derek felt himself slipping into the madness.

How had Laura mastered this when she became alpha?

The stab of grief cleared the miasma of rage in his head for a moment.

Laura hadn't been ready, even if she had been trained, but she'd had Derek. She'd had a beta, a pack, however lonely and wrecked that pack had been.

Derek didn't have anyone. He needed betas. He needed betas more than he needed to kill. He pushed through the beast, pushed with the need to build his pack.

He pushed at the alpha power in him until something shifted, until the fire that scoured him from the inside subsided, and he felt his body accept it. He owned the shift, it didn't control him. A deep, pure breath of air filled his lungs and he realized he'd run deep into the Preserve and beyond, into the national forest. He'd found a natural stone look out that let him look back toward the distant lights of Beacon Hills.

The moon floated above him, the light fragile and mysterious, its curve and glow reaching inside to make his blood sing. Derek lifted his head and sang back it, a howl full of sorrow and triumph.

He called out for anyone, the wail of the lonely wolf, until a weak, wobbly howl answered him from Beacon Hills.

Scott.

Not his pack, but a Hale bite. A blood tie and a responsibility to hold Derek in Beacon Hills.

Far distant, on the other side of the low pass to Hill Valley, the howls of another pack cried back to him, warning and greeting and mourning along with Derek. They echoed back and forth through the mountains. A family of coyotes yammered from the Preserve, insisting on their place in the territory. Derek roared and the coyotes wisely fell silent.

In the quiet that followed, Derek sank down to his knees. He was the last Hale wolf. He shivered; it became a shudder and a ripple that ran deep into bone and muscle. Grief made his heart want to stop. For an instant it did, but he was the Hale alpha, it was who he was. It settled into place inside and Derek felt himself slide into the shift again.

It was smoother and easier than it had ever been. It wasn't the alpha power that had changed though, it was Derek. He'd accepted himself, accepted he might die at Kate's hands, that he might never avenge Laura, that he had had to kill Peter. The guilt he felt wasn't gone, but he knew it; it was a part of him, the way his love for his family had been, the way his memories of Laura were, the way his eyes had burned blue beneath the Nemeton…

The Nemeton! He'd given Paige the mercy of death instead of agony there in a cellar excavated beneath its roots. He'd spilled innocent blood there, a sacrifice of selfishness and innocence. He'd forgotten it though, forgotten the place where he'd taken her in a hope it could save her, and only remembered that he'd taken her life.

Those memories, the pieces his mother had removed, were once more consciously part of him, thanks to the alpha power. It came to him, laced with betrayal, that he could never have reached the full shift while those memories were denied to him. He could never have accepted himself enough to become the wolf without them. He'd never been meant to be alpha, but in taking those memories from him, his mother had denied him the full shift too.

Bitterness bubbled up, but he chose to let it drain away.

Maybe she would have given the memories back one day, when he was stronger and ready for them. Derek didn't know. He forgave her. She had made her choices from necessity but with love.

Derek slid into the wolf, the full shift as natural as his heart beating.

The stone was cool under his paws. Scents flooded his senses. He let his tongue loll, tasting the night and everything in it. A shrew caught a beetle under the pine needles. The silky whisper of the wind over an owl's wing promised death from the dark. There were deer lower down the mountain, where the glades offered good grazing. He could run one down, leap, snap its neck and feast. He could run with the moon all night. It would be effortless.

Derek howled his joy to the moon this time.

~~~

Kate bit back screams as Victoria cleaned out the wounds. Chris held her shoulders down when her whole torso arched up, seized with agony, because they weren't using just saline, but alcohol and holy water infused with rowan ash and diluted wolfsbane and it burned, it seared even through the blood still pulsing from where Peter Hale had clawed her open.

"Keep her still," Victoria snapped.

"Kate, Kate, just keep it together," Chris urged her, the moron trying to be comforting when Kate was fucking bleeding out –

They had her in their kitchen, laid out on the stainless topped island, her clothes cut away, and she could feel the antiseptic wash sluice from her chest down across her ribs, over her tits – fuck that fucker had got one of her nipples – and it was freezing cold.

Kate glared up at Chris leaning over her. The overhead light haloed his graying head and concealed his expression, blinding her. She gritted her teeth against another scream as something pricked through skin that hadn't been torn open.

"Lidocaine is the best I can risk," Victoria said. She capped the hypodermic she'd just used on Kate and tossed it into the sink with the blood-soaked gauze and towels Allison had packed Kate's wounds with before bringing her home to mommy.

"You'll probably want to see a plastic surgeon eventually," Vicky went on.

"Just stitch me the fuck up," Kate gritted out.

Victoria might have taken every EMT and emergency medicine course she could just for situations like this, because hunters were routinely battered and wounded and just as routinely couldn't afford the attention that hospital visits would draw, but she wasn't a doctor. Kate was going to scar.

Fucking scars.

No more low-cut tops for her. At least Hale hadn't got her face.

She screeched through locked teeth as Victoria set the first suture.

"You're lucky," Chris said.

Fuck lucky.

"Lucky," Victoria affirmed, looking up from her work to meet Kate's enraged gaze. "If the alpha had bit you instead of using his claws, you know what you'd have to do."

Kate held her breath, then nodded. The bite of an alpha werewolf meant death from rejection or turning. Any hunter would kill themselves before becoming one of them.

Any good, self-respecting hunter would. Kate knew there were some who didn't. Every hunter pursued those traitors harder than any others. She'd put some of them down herself.

Kate was lucky, sure. She wasn't turning. She was alive and would stay that way, with her scars and her hate.

She clenched her fists and stayed silent as Victoria tied off the next stitch, refusing to look down at the ruin of her chest or the mockery of sympathy on her brother's face.

She was alive and every werewolf or supernatural thing, every fucker who got in her way, was going to pay.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be fair to call it the calm after the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the beta-ed version is in place. Differences are minimal. I can only hope I've smashed all the typo gremlins. Thanks to mecurtin for spotting the date inconsistencies.

 

**~~~September 28, 2012~~~**

**Gibbous Harvest Moon**

 

Going to school the next day felt surreal. What had happened the night before… Scott didn't know what it meant for him. He was a still a werewolf; he blamed Derek for that. Scott went, finally, because he couldn't figure out any excuse his mom would believe to stay home. Once he arrived, though, all he could think of was seeing Allison.

He spotted her father dropping her off as he bicycled up to the bike-stand and almost plowed into the big, quiet guy who always took a seat in the back of class. Boyd stepped out of the way and caught Scott's arm when he swerved at the last second, saving him from spilling his bike.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, but Scott ignored it, staring as Allison started up the steps into the main building. Her brunette hair was loose in long curls. She looked super tense and when she saw him, she looked away and hurried toward the doors.

"Allison!" he called and tried to take off after her.

Boyd held him back. "Chain up your bike, man," he advised before letting go.

"Oh, yeah," Scott mumbled, realizing he couldn't just chase right after Allison. His mom would be pissed if he let his bike be stolen.

His phone was still buzzing in his pocket. He ignored it while securing his bike as fast as he could. He closed the lock as Chris Argent's big, red SUV came to an idling stop next to the stand.

The passenger window hummed down. Argent stared at him with the creepy pale eyes.

Scott froze.

"McCall," Argent said.

"Yes sir?"

"Stay away from my daughter."

Scott straightened indignantly. He loved Allison! He wasn't letting anyone come between them. They were meant to be together, he didn't care what anyone thought or said. Last night only proved it. If he hadn't been there the Alpha or Derek could have killed her.

"I won't," he declared. "We love each other."

"You will, or I will make sure you do," Argent stated. "I'm not my sister, I don't hunt those who are innocent, but I will protect Allison with my life."

Scott curled his hands into fists. His claws cut into his palms. "I don't care – "

"I won't hesitate to take your life," Argent said stonily. "Do you understand?"

Scott stared at him in disbelief. "You wouldn't do that."

The contempt on Argent's face made something in Scott curl up and want to run away. He might be super strong and fast and healthy now, but that and claws didn't make him special or dangerous to this man. Argent would always be more dangerous than Scott could dream of being.

Argent, Scott thought, was a killer. Killing was always wrong, he knew that, and that meant Mr. Argent was wrong. And if he was wrong, Scott didn't have to listen to him, even if he was Allison's father.

"Stay away from Allison," Argent said again, then steered his SUV away.

"He ain't kiddin', McCall," Boyd told him. Scott had completely forgotten he was there.

The class bells began ringing and Scott jerked his head up. He wouldn't have time to talk to Allison before his first class!

His phone was still buzzing in his pocket, so he yanked it out and began checking his messages as he half-blindly ran for his first class' room.

It was just Stiles though, asking where he was, since Stiles was sitting outside his house, waiting to give him a ride to school.

_Alrdy hre_ , Scott texted and shoved his phone in his pocket as he found a desk.

~~~

Stupid Scott.

"Could you be any more frustrating!?" Stiles snapped at his phone in lieu of Scott. Thanks to Scott not telling he wouldn't need a ride, _Stiles_ was going to be late now.

He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and decided since he was going to be late anyway, he might as well swing through the Arby's drive-thru.

"Stupid Scott."

Scott had been a huge ball of sulky baby the night before as they left Argent and Derek behind with Peter's body.

"I could've been normal!" Scott complained. "Derek cost me my chance."

Jackson had growled and Stiles didn't blame him.

"It's an old wives' tale," Stiles said. "it wouldn't have worked."

"Kate said it would."

"Great, you're taking your advice from the psycho bitch from hell," Jackson snapped.

"I could have been normal again!"

"Yeah, you could have been a loser," Jackson said. "What about me? I got clawed. What about Lydia? Doesn't she matter? He bit her; she's going to change too. You're a selfish fuck."

God, Stiles hated agreeing with Jackson, but he'd nailed it last night. Scott had just pouted. It wasn't like Scott could have killed Peter anyway, not without help. Peter had swatted him like a mosquito.

Stiles drummed his fingers against the Jeep's steering wheel, remembering how Scott just crossed his arms over his chest and glared out the window without answering. It wasn't like Jackson had ever done anything but act like a douche to either of them, so Scott had no reason to sympathize with him or Lydia, but at the same time, that didn't mean Scott had a better claim on going back to being human than anyone else.

Trying to get Scott to see that was like trying to explain blue to someone blind from birth, though.

It made zero sense for killing the alpha that bit you to undo being a werewolf when the alpha could and had bit more than one person. It should either undo it for all of them when he died or none. There was no logic to there being any way for it to be undone anyway. As far as Stiles had uncovered, the Bite worked like a viral gene therapy and rewrote DNA into something that did things medical science didn't understand. Even if it was woo-woo magic though, he knew somehow that there was no going back.

Scott was stuck, Jackson was probably stuck, Lydia was… whatever was happening to her. They couldn't reverse it.

Scott had insisted on Stiles stopping and letting him out to run the rest of the way home when Stiles yelled at him that if he'd killed Peter, he'd have just ended up the alpha instead of Derek.

At least Derek knew how to werewolf. Stiles felt decently confident that Derek wouldn't be running around biting people against their will or killing them. He hadn't even tried to kill Kate and she was cray-cray for Cocoa-Puffs.

If Derek was a danger, Chris Argent wouldn't have stuck around with him, either.

Stiles turned the Jeep into the Arby's entrance.

He ordered his regular favorites and a giant chocolate milkshake, then decided to ditch entirely, and turned the Jeep toward the hospital once he had his order.

Scott might be all about Allison, but Allison had been okay last night, while Lydia was in the hospital. Stiles figured he could visit her or at least find out how she was.

Stupid Scott.

~~~

Stiles snuck into Lydia's hospital room while her mother was off in the cafeteria. Supposedly. He'd watched her Mercedes lurch out of the parking lot in the direction of the Red Velvet Lounge, where she could drink her lunch. As far as he knew, Lydia's father hadn't bothered coming up from Sacramento.

He brought balloons and a stuffed animal from the gift shop, which he realized immediately was dumb. Lydia wasn't conscious to appreciate them, provided she would value something so plebian and transitory. He didn't know what else to do for her though, so he'd defaulted.

Most of her wounds were hidden beneath bandages and the sheets and blanket on the hospital bed. The pale blue sheets and the fluorescent lights made her look haggard. Someone had combed out her hair, but it was unwashed and lank. Lydia would have been horrified.

"So, hey," Stiles whispered. "A lot of stuff happened. Bad stuff. But, um, Peter won't hurt you again. You're safe."

The monitor showing Lydia's heartbeat, blood oxygen and pressure didn't respond. There was no movement from her eyes beneath the thin, closed lids.

"You need to wake up. Seriously. You're not going to let a creep like Peter Hale beat Lydia Martin, right?"

Stiles was afraid to touch her. There were IV needles threaded into her arm and the oxygen monitor on her forefinger. Her other arm was on the far side of the bed. It felt presumptuous to touch her anyway; she wasn't conscious to snatch her hand back.

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets instead. "Okay, well, I'll – I'll come back tomorrow. And I'm sure your mom will be back as quick as she can. Everyone is rooting for you."

God, that was all so weak. Lydia would never tolerate so much bullshit if she were awake.

"You know, you have to wake up to find out what really happened," Stiles wheedled.

Lydia didn't stir

"Hey, what are you doing here?" a nurse said from behind him. Stiles jolted and lost hold of the balloons.

"Oh, cripes, I just, she's – I was just leaving these off." The stupid mylar balloons bobbed up to the ceiling. Stiles looked at the stuffed panda he still clutched and set it on the rolling meal tray. He'd almost walked out with it.

"No visitors except family," the nurse told him sternly.

Stiles straightened his shoulders. "Then she's going to be lonely. Don't doctors say talking to coma patients is good?"

"Out."

"Fine, I'm going," he said.

She glared at him until he backed out of the room, banging his shoulder against the door jamb and stumbling before he recovered.

He headed down the long corridor to the elevators, feeling empty and strange. It felt like everything was over after the confrontation with Peter. The Alpha was gone. But everything was changed. Scott was still a werewolf. Stiles couldn't unknow what he'd found out, this shadowy world existing in parallel with reality as he'd known it for sixteen years. Lydia was in a coma. People were still dead. Derek was out there somewhere, all alone, with red eyes.

It made his heart hammer too fast in his chest and the air clutch in his lungs. He slapped the down button to the elevator. His head felt weird until he gasped and realized he'd been holding his breath. Great. The last thing he needed was a panic attack or to be found passed out from hyperventilating in the hospital, though he could probably pass it off as a phobia. Would it be hyperventilating though, if it was from holding his breath, or hypo-, like hypovolemic shock or hypoglycemia?

He jiggled his weight from foot to foot.

The ding and clank of the elevator arriving made him look up from the toes of his shoes. The dark steel doors opened. Stiles' mouth fell open with them.

Jackson glared at him. "Stilinski."

"Heeeey, Jackson. You look – " Stiles paused and frowned. " – good."

"I always look good."

Stiles looked at him closer. No scrapes, no bruises, no sign Jackson had been thrashed by an enraged alpha werewolf. He looked pristine. He looked even better than usual even. Like he'd put on muscle and some indefinable sheen of health and strength.

Like Scott did post-Bite.

Oh, fuck.

But Jackson had been clawed, not bitten. Stiles remembered.

He remembered Peter saying he needed betas and Lydia and Jackson would turn or not.

He stared at Jackson's shoulder, were the wound should have still be red and drawn, even if he'd seen a doctor to stitch it up.

Jackson caught him staring. He snatched Stile's collar and yanked him into the elevator.

"You healed?" Stiles whispered.

Jackson's hand went to his shoulder reflexively. He lifted his chin and stared at the floor lights as the elevator jerked and started down.

"You did."

Stiles reached over and peeled Jackson's shirt back enough to see unblemished skin. Jackson batted his hand away.

"Fuck," Stiles breathed. "You – We need to talk to Derek."

"I can handle it," Jackson snarled at him. His eyes flared bright yellow for a second.

"Sure, I mean, you'll be better than Scott," Stiles said. He felt bad for Scott, but it was true. Jackson was starting from knowing werewolves were real and what had happened to him, not flailing in the dark. "But, Derek's – he was born a werewolf. He knows stuff."

He perked up. "Hey, maybe he knows something that could help Lydia."

Jackson gave him a skeptical look, but then slumped. "She isn't getting any better."

"So, we should find out whatever we can, for her," Stiles said. "And you, because you totally want to be better at werewolfing than Scott, right?" He wasn't above using manipulation and rivalry for peoples' own good. Or his amusement, but that wasn't relevant at present.

"Werewolfing," Jackson repeated.

Stiles flung his hands up. "What else are you going to call it. Alternative Lupine Lifestyles? The Lunarly Challenged? Muttonchops Anonymous?"

"Shut up. Fine. Do you even know where Hale is?"

"No, but I know where to start looking"

Stiles might not know Derek well, but he could guess he'd go back to the ruins of the Hale house.

~~~

"You have a call from the high school," Tara told Noah as he settled behind his desk. "Stiles skipped – " The scanner he kept in the office, tuned to dispatch, interrupted her and they both stiffened as the Patterson spoke.

"Call from Beacon Hills Hospital, caller identified as Dr. Sean Geyer, report of a dead body in the employee parking lot." Patterson directed the nearest patrol car to the hospital.

Noah pushed out his desk chair fast enough it rolled back and bounced off a filing cabinet. He ignored it, grabbed his uniform jacket, and started out the door. "Tara, I'm heading for the scene. Tell whoever called from the school I'll deal with Stiles later."

He hit the siren after he took the cruiser out of the parking lot onto the main road and indulged in weaving through what passed for morning traffic in Beacon Hills. The town sprawled, but even so it took less than ten minutes to reach the latest crime scene.

Noah stalked over to where Martinez was talking to a man who had on surgical gloves.

The body was charred back, clothes and skin peeling away from cooked flesh.

"This is Dr. Geyer," Martinez introduced the man.

"I smelled something as soon as I got out my car," Geyer explained. "It was strong. When I walked closer, I saw the body." He held up his hands. "I had to check he was dead, even though… "

Even though the body was not only burned but in two pieces and the head barely connected.

"Get the gloves for evidence," Noah told Martinez.

"I already called it in. DeShaun's on his way to document the scene," Martinez said. The last month had taught all of Noah's deputies exactly what to do. First Laura Hale, then the two burned men in the Preserve, the video clerk, the custodian at the high school… The girl torn up at the school dance the night before… Now another body, cut in two like Laura. What the hell was going on and when would it end?

Geyer was right, the smell was unpleasantly strong. Noah frowned. The body smelled like char, gasoline, and burned meat, but he was catching a distinct whiff of decomp.

He walked close and knelt to examine the body closer. The burns were fresh, he thought, crusted and oozy.

Geyer came a couple of steps closer. "For what it's worth, I think he was dead before he was burned."

"Before he was cut in two?" Noah asked.

"The, uh, cuts are burned the same as the rest," Geyer said. "So, probably, yes."

Noah saw what he'd meant. He bit back a tasteless remark that the killer had achieved an even char on all sides.

"Anyone have a pen?" he asked. Martinez walked away and came back with one.

Noah used it to delicately lift a piece of burned fabric on the chest. "That looks like a bullet hole."

"Someone really wanted this guy dead," Martinez opined.

Noah couldn't argue that.

But the smell of decomposition was not coming from the dead man in the parking spot next to the walled offed maintenance space attached to the back of the hospital. He couldn't see a dumpster nearby either. Just a blue compact sedan with a good deal of dust on it parked next to the last slot. It had blocked the body from view.

"Run the plates on the car," Noah said.

It had clearly been parked for days.

Noah stood, ignoring the creak in his knees, and stared at the innocuous looking sedan. It looked about ten years old. He checked the plate. Current registration. A placard was propped in the rear window. A Beacon Crossings Long-Term Care employee parking permit.

The nursing home stood on the far side of the parking lot. The rear entrance was closer to the hospital employee parking lot than the facility's own limited parking. Given that Noah knew from Melissa that more than one nurse moonlighted there, he'd bet they used the hospital lot regularly too.

He didn't want to look at the body but had to as it occurred to Noah that Beacon Crossing was currently missing a patient: Peter Hale.

Considering Laura Hale had been found in two pieces, the location, and that there had been at least two murders involving fire since, he had to wonder if he was looking at Peter Hale's remains.

Martinez shuffled over to him. "Dispatch says the car belongs to Jennifer Webb. She works over at there." He nodded toward the Care Home.

Noah approached the car. He pulled in a deep breath and nearly choked. The decomp was sickeningly thicker near the car.

"Do you smell that?" he asked.

Martinez sniffed and made a face. "Yeah. I thought it was – " He gestured to the body.

"I think it's coming from the car," Noah said. The body smelled like bad barbeque and lighter fluid but not rotten.

Martinez eyed the trunk. "You want to pop it, boss?"

Noah nodded confirmation. "Got a prybar in your cruiser?"

"Yeah," Martinez confirmed, "but," he walked to the sedan's door and tried it. It opened. "it's easier to use the release."

"Stop!" Noah shouted at him as he reached for it.

"What?"

"Prints," Noah told him.

Martinez grimaced. "Shit. Sorry."

Noah gave him a pat on the shoulder. He couldn't be mad that the man hadn't wanted to vandalize the vehicle if it wasn't necessary. He'd never liked the attitude that a search was a license to destroy someone's belongings. Behavior like that just reinforced a justifiable distrust and dislike of law enforcement. They were supposed to serve and protect, not bully and terrorize.

Martinez popped the lock on the sedan's trunk. The lid lifted and the stench rolled out hard enough Noah gagged.

The body stuffed inside had been dead for days.

"Fuck," Martinez blurted before staggering back a few steps.

Noah would bet this was Jennifer Webb. She'd probably been dead since the night Peter Hale disappeared.

At least she hadn't been cut in two.

"Call it in," he told Martinez.

God damn it, who was behind this? He knew damn well it wasn't Derek Hale. Hale seemed dangerous and damaged, but this killer was sly and nasty and having fun at the expense of everyone. There was still the matter of Hale being at the high school when Jurasik was murdered, though.

If he had been. There was only Scott and Stiles' word for that.

Hale was damned good at slipping Noah's deputies. If he wasn't still seen around town, Noah would think he'd skipped town entirely. He wasn't out at the Hale house. Not even the Camaro was out there. God knew where he was sleeping. Some place worse than his burned-out family home, probably, which made Noah angry.

There was something screwy about the story the kids had told about the night at the high school.

If he could just get hold of Hale, maybe he could get some answers that would make sense.

Noah scrubbed wearily at his face. If they didn't get a handle on this in the next twenty-four hours, he would have to ask the FBI for a consult from their serial killer specialists. He had a couple of contacts who would route it around Rafe McCall. He couldn't let this go on.

He had to catch whoever was behind these murders.

~~~

Stiles knew Scott was going to be pissed at him. His father was going to be disappointed. But he nerved himself up and knocked on the door to his dad's office. He usually breezed in, but the door was closed. He didn't want to make a shit situation worse by interrupting an important meeting.

Maybe he didn't mind waiting a little longer either.

The door opened for Deputy Clark and she gave him a tired smile as she walked out. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," Stiles replied with a head bob.

"Stiles?" his dad called.

"Gotta talk to the paterfamilias," Stiles said to Clark and edged his way into the office. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then took them out, then hooked his thumbs on his belt loops and rocked on his heels.

His dad looked up from the papers on his desk and squinted. "What have you done now?"

"Yeah, I didn't exactly do something," Stiles said. "I kinda didn't say something."

His dad scrubbed his hands over his face. "Stiles, we've got two more dead bodies." He shook his head. "Please don't waste my time beating around the bush."

"Yeah, I know. It's why I have to tell you," Stiles said. He made himself sit down in the chair opposite his dead. His fingers drummed on his knees. "You shouldn't waste any more time looking for Derek Hale."

"Why?"

"Because Scott lied about him being at the high school," Stiles blurted. "I was with Scott the whole time and Derek wasn't there."

"Jesus, Stiles."

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck. "I know. Okay, I know. Totally shitty, horrible, stupid. It's just, the deputies talked to us separately and I didn't say Derek was there and Scott only told me he'd said Derek was there after he gave his statement." He plucked at his pants. "I didn't want to get him in trouble for lying."

"Honestly, Stiles, I don't know what you want me to do with this. Yes, Scott could be in trouble for deliberately giving a false report, but you would have to testify to that. Are you ready to do that?"

Stiles stared down at his worn-out sneakers. They were almost too small – he had huge feet and he'd swear he'd gone up two sizes since last year.

"Stiles?"

"I don't know, okay? It's – He's the twenty-four hour all Allison channel and ever since she dumped him, he's been… " Stiles waved his hands like he could pluck the right word out of the air. Obsessed would do, but he didn't want to make his dad think worse of Scott. "A real tw – " _twatwaffle_ , but he swallowed that back because of his dad, "twerp, he's been an absolute twerp and all he can talk about is convincing her family to let her date him again."

"That sounds like it's between Scott and Allison."

"Yeah, it should be, but her family has some vendetta against the Hales, and he said he told you Derek was at the high school to get him in trouble. He thought it would make them like him better. I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me. I like Allison, she's fine, but Scott wanted me to back him up if he lied about Derek again. He blames him for Allison breaking up with him, which is stupid, because I know for a fact that she did it because he lied to her."

"It sounds like Scott is having a problem with lying," his dad commented. His eyebrows were up so Stiles knew he was thinking that Stiles was the one who always lied and flubbed things and tried to come up with outrageous excuses. But Stiles never threw anyone under the bus. He usually lied to cover for them. Scott, fine, mostly Scott, and now Derek, but that hadn't really been for Derek, it had been about keeping his dad from finding out about werewolves, specifically, Scott.

Dully, Stiles said, "He's changed."

What an understatement! Scott's life was so much better now he was a werewolf, but did he appreciate it? Hardly. All he did was bitch. Fine, Scott hadn't asked to be bit, he didn't want to be a werewolf. Stiles hadn't asked for his mom's brain to rot in her head until she screamed and threw things at him and finally couldn't even make her body breathe, but no one asked him either. Shitty things happened; you rolled with it or you got rolled over. There were no good sides to your mom dying. At least Scott got perks; no more asthma, popularity, sport star, and a beautiful girl for a while at least.

"I know it seems like it now, but Scott's a good kid," his dad said. "He made a mistake, but it's not disastrous. Derek Hale's still a person of interest, but he's not a suspect and the APB was canceled. He has a steel-clad alibi for when Unger and Reddick were killed."

Stiles perked up. "Oh? What was he doing? How do you know?"

His dad huffed an exasperated laugh. "Fine. This one time, I'll tell you, because there's no harm or secret. Hale was in San Francisco. I told him to get a lawyer if he wanted his sister laid to rest in the family plot. He got the most powerful law firm in the North State. Apparently, this lawyer's father knew Hale's mother. He stayed with them in Napa Valley."

"So, he wasn't even in town that night? Oh, wow, that's, um, good news for him?"

"Yes, and I'm relieved. The word of over a dozen people, one of whom is a member of the Governor's legal team, carries a bit more weight than a hysterical teenager. If it ever went to trial, Michael Dellaluna would tear Scott apart on the stand. Maybe you should tell him that."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that." Whenever he can be bothered to talk to me again now that he doesn't need a go-between, Stiles thought bitterly.

"You might tell him that lying to a police officer is stupid, but lying to his girlfriend? Suicidal," his dad joked tiredly.

"So, you're just going to let it go?" Stiles asked.

"The alternative is charging Scott with a crime. No one's been harmed yet, so I don't want to do that to Melissa or Scott."

Stiles jumped to his feet. "Thanks, pops." He came around the desk and gave his dad a tight, bent over hug. "You're the best."

"Go home. Do your homework. Stay out of trouble!"

"I thought I'd go to the hospital and see how Lydia is."

"All right, but then home. And no more cutting classes!"

~~~

Noah looked up from the paperwork on front of him gratefully when Tara knocked at his door. The blinds on the glass were open so she could see him wave her in.

He knew immediately from her expression he wasn't going to enjoy whatever she had to tell him.

"What now?" he asked tiredly.

Her mouth quirked.

"Agent Tyhurst from the California Bureau of Investigation is here," she answered.

Noah pressed two fingers to the space between his eyes. He needed to start wearing his glasses. Though that wasn't the reason for the headache starting up.

"Did he say what he was here for?" Like Noah didn't know. Of course. CBI poked their noses into this business now he was prepared to ask for federal aid. The fact was, he'd requested help, though he'd wanted state resources and not an investigator. He was secretly hoping that with the death of Peter Hale, the circle was closed, and the killings would end.

Admittedly, that was like a kitten hiding its front in a bag and believing no one could see its tail hanging out, but a man could dream, couldn't he?

"The murders," Tara said.

"Of course."

Noah shuffled the papers in front of him together and shoved them back in their folder and summoned a smile.

"Well, maybe he can be some help."

"Sure," Tara drawled sarcastically. "It looks like he's already best buddies with Haigh."

Noah sighed under his breath.

"Go ahead and show him in."

This was going to be a pain if Tyhurst was already cozying up to the department's problem child. Assholes flocked together and all that in Noah's experience. At least Tyhurst was CBI and not FBI. Noah winced at just the prospect of having to deal with Rafe McCall.

"And Tara, call my son and warn him I'll probably be late tonight too and tell him to go ahead and eat without me."

Noah would end up picking up some sort of fast food on his way home and the annoying part would be that he would be too tired to even savor it.

Tyhurst proved to be just as over-confident and interfering as Noah had feared, and the case went spectacularly nowhere, his request for FBI iwent on hold, while Derek Hale continued to elude law enforcement with embarrassing ease, but the next two weeks were blessedly quiet. Beacon Hills seemed to settle back into its slumberous normal state.

Noah decided to put off calling in the BAU. Tyhurst was a profiler. They'd get by without needing to deal with Scott's father or the FBI. The mayor and the county board would all be happier that way, since admitting they had a serial killer and bringing in the FBI would inevitably result in bad publicity.

Weeks later, he would realize it hadn't been the quiet of an ending, but the silence at the eye of the storm.

 

**~~~October 1, 2012~~~**

**Waning Full Moon**

 

Jackson stripped off his shirt and Derek closed his teeth through the flesh of his flank. There was a shock, but before the pain could process, there was a snap, and the animal awareness he'd had of Derek as a bigger, more dangerous predator, as another werewolf, transmuted into an awareness of _Derek_ , of his alpha, of something that bonded them beyond species or even emotion.

He'd never experienced a sense of _belonging_ that approached the beta bond, not with teams, not with friends, not with his family.

Jackson gasped and stepped forward into Derek's arms. The embrace settled something inside him that he'd always known was undone.

From the far corner of the room, which had once been a parlor and now was striped with sunlight through broken slats and ashy shadows, Stiles shifted restlessly, then spoke, irrepressibly, "So, from the display of werewolf homoeroticism – which thank you for that image, I should've taken a pic, I could have sold it to a spank bank site for mucho moola – I'm figuring it worked?"

Derek and Jackson stepped back from each other. Derek cocked a disapproving eyebrow at Stiles, while Jackson fingered his side. There was a single trickle of ticklish blood on his flank, but the bite had already scarred over, almost silvery pale, and surprisingly human looking in shape.

"So, that makes Jackson _your_ beta, even though Peter clawed him up?" Stiles asked.

"Yes," Derek replied patiently. "It's not that extraordinary. Sometimes a wolf needs or just wants to go to a different pack. They accept the bite from their new alpha and any remaining bond is broken and replaced."

"So is it just submission – ?"

"Only in part. A wolf must submit to their alpha, but it's also intention," Derek told him. He'd explained this twice already, to Jackson and then to Stiles and Jackson. "We need to be part of a pack. The connection stabilizes us, gives us better control, even on the full moon, but it can't be just a… transaction, even though alpha and betas gain from it."

"You've got to want it," Jackson said.

"It's choice," Derek agreed.

Stiles scuffed at the dirty floor with the toe of his sneaker. "What about Scotty? Peter didn't give him any choice."

"And Scott resisted him at every turn."

Stiles nodded jerkily. "But he could join your pack?"

Jackson scoffed softly. "Like we'd want him."

Derek rolled his shoulders. "He could. I would accept him. Peter was still a Hale, that makes Scott a Hale Bite, and as a Hale I have a responsibility toward him, but… "

"You don't want him." Stiles sounded wounded.

"And he doesn't want me or any alpha, I think," Derek explained. "I can't and wouldn't force it. What we are, it's more than an infection, or if it is, it's one that's influenced by who we are as well as physiology."

"What, like mind over matter?" Stiles asked.

Derek shrugged and replied, "I've never seen it, but my grandmother told stories of Bites that went… wrong. The shift reflects the person."

"Peter looked like a monster because he was cray-cray?"

Derek shrugged again. "Maybe."

"What do you look like?"

"You want to see?"

"I do," Jackson said. He wanted to see what he'd look like when he shifted.

"Yeah," Stiles confirmed.

Derek flashed scarlet eyes, so bright they glowed. His lip lifted and needle-sharp ivory fangs lowered. Still human fingers unbuttoned his shirt and his pants as he stripped.

Stiles jerked back a step. "Whoa!"

"What the hell?" Jackson exclaimed. "No one said anything about getting naked!"

"I don't want to wreck my clothes," Derek said, and he was lisping from the teeth and laughing at their teenage skittishness. He folded them and set them on the tattered chaise lounge that had somehow survived. "Get used to it. I thought you were used to the locker room."

Stiles slapped his hand over his eyes. "Not that used to it, dude!"

Jackson eyed Derek with interest. He was dense with heavy muscle, tightly packed power, his body mature where Jackson was lighter despite being fit. Derek was cut too, no spare body fat, everything defined. Jackson wondered if being a werewolf would result in him having a body like that eventually.

Derek wasn't exactly hirsute, despite folklore, but he had more body hair than any of the teenage boys Jackson had compared himself to.

First his fingers sprouted long black claws. His feet flexed and drew Jackson's attention. His toes had claws too. The hair did thicken over his body, becoming close to a pelt on his chest and belly, thighs and calves and forearms. The bones in his face shifted beneath the skin, becoming heavier, lengthening his jaw, broadening his aquiline nose. His ears grew sharp and pointed with tufts of fur at the tips. They shifted too, angling to catch Stiles' gasp.

"The beta shift," Derek slurred.

He rocked his neck, vertebrae cracking, and _grew_ , gaining height and mass and intimidating power. Fangs over hung his lip. His ears had moved toward the top of his head. His face was a mixture of wolf head and human.

"Alpha," he growled, the word garbled by tongue and teeth not meant for speech.

Instinctively, Jackson angled his head back and to the side, showing his alpha his neck in submission.

Derek stalked closer and brushed his half-animal snout against the vulnerable skin. He inhaled and then huffed in satisfaction, hot damp breath electrifying Jackson's skin. But he wasn't afraid, not even uncomfortable. He felt pleased because Derek accepted him. Any sense of danger evaporated with that.

"Dude," Stiles whispered, "he could tear your throat out. With his teeth."

"It's fine," Jackson dismissed, because it was. He was pack.

It was amazing and something he wanted to clutch to himself inside and gloat over later. He was never letting it go. All the pieces of himself were slotted together right for the first time. All the insecurities and anxiety that made him resent Stilinski and need to show up everyone were silenced, blanketed in a comfort he'd kill to keep. But at the same time, he didn't feel threatened, there was no way anyone could take that from him.

He guessed this wasn't something human and didn't care. It was better. It was a gift, even if he hadn't known to ask for it, and briefly, he felt sorry for Stiles.

Derek made his neck crack again then dropped down to the floor. The shift rolled through him so fast eyesight couldn't follow details. He blurred for a breath and then they were looking at a huge black wolf.

Jackson didn't know what Derek weighed, but it looked close to two hundred or over as the alpha and he knew that was far more than any normal wolf, but Derek hadn't lost any of his mass. If anything, he'd gained more. He was the size of a pony and even on four feet, his head was close to level with Jackson's.

"Holy shit!" Stiles exclaimed, back-pedaling until he hit the wall and brought down a shower of ash and dust that made Derek the wolf shake his head and sneeze.

He stared at Stiles judgmentally.

There were other differences beyond size, Jackson thought. Wolves had dull claws, because they weren't retractable. Derek's still looked razor sharp. His head was huge, with a muzzle full of terrifying teeth of course, but it looked large enough to hold a human-sized brain.

Of course, there were the scarlet alpha eyes that made Derek look like some demon black beast torn loose from hell, too.

But they faded as Jackson watched, lightening to a natural shade, the same silver-sage green Derek's human eyes were.

"Dude, dude," Stiles abruptly exclaimed, "you've got a tail!"

Derek didn't move, but he snapped his white, white teeth audibly in Stiles' direction.

Stiles held his hands up. "What? You think I could not comment on that? Though, really, Jackson, back me up here, you'd look really strange like this if you didn't have a tail."

"You're insane," Jackson told him.

Derek huffed and made a grumbling noise. The differences from a real wolf obviously didn't include a human larynx and speech.

"It's fucking amazing, Jackson, admit it." Stiles walked closer slowly and reached his hand out the way he would with a dog, proffering it for Derek to scent. Derek did so, added a wet lick with a long red tongue that made Stiles ewww, then endured Stiles running a hand over his fur. "Crap, this is so crazy. Good crazy, man, 'cause, wow, you're kind of gorgeous like this. Not that you break any mirrors normally – " Stiles snapped his mouth shut on the rest of his babble and frowned. "Peter couldn't do this, could he?"

Derek made a derisive grumble growl.

He shrugged away Stiles' hand too and stalked over to Jackson, staring into his eyes the whole way.

When he just waited, Jackson made himself run his hand along Derek's back. His coat was thick, with long glossy guard hairs over a thicker almost wooly coat beneath. Jackson could barely comb through it. Derek tolerated it a little longer before sliding away.

He jumped onto the chaise and then rippled, like a heat mirage, becoming human shaped again.

"Can Jackson become a wolf?" Stiles asked immediately, even before Derek finished dressing again. "Or is that just an alpha thing?"

"It's a Hale thing," Derek answered, his voice hoarse. He slumped down on the chaise, looking exhausted. "It's not impossible, there have been other packs with full shifters, but it's rare, even among born wolves."

"But your sister could do it."

"And my mother." Derek scrubbed a hand over his face. "Peter never could. I never did before I became alpha."

Jackson wasn't positive he wanted to become a full wolf. Other than his drive to always be the best and show up everyone else and it wasn't like he could show up Derek. Derek would always be a born wolf, not to mention the connection Jackson felt to him as his beta. That connection hummed contentedly beneath his skin even now, a part of him proud that his alpha was so impressive.

"Huh."

Derek glanced at Jackson. "We'll start practicing your shift tomorrow night."

"Here?"

Derek grimaced and shook his head. "There are still hunters hanging around Argent's gun range. They may set traps in the Preserve or even be out there. They know this place. The sheriff's department is watching for me too."

"Not so much now. Dad said you're not a suspect anymore. Alibis. You should really find a better place, though," Stiles agreed. "I could do some research, find you some realty listings – "

"Not until the estate is worked out. Plus, I don't want where I live on record while the hunters are still here."

Stiles nodded. "I could – "

"Leave that to me," Derek said. "I'll find some place to squat until it's safer."

"So where will you train me?" Jackson asked impatiently.

"You've got a car. Meet me at the Cattleman's in Redding," Derek said. He smiled. "It's a steakhouse. We'll eat first. The shift takes energy, especially at first, and then we'll go out to the national forest on the way back. We can run there."

Derek did look tired, like going from human to beta to alpha to wolf and back had taken it out of him.

"Are we done for the night?" Jackson asked. It was too late to visit Lydia at the hospital, but he could go by Danny's or even go home and do the 'family dinner' routine with his parents.

"For tonight." Derek walked over to him and squeezed Jackson's shoulder firmly. Jackson could feel his approval through the pack bond. He wanted to wallow in it. "Go get something to eat and, remember, keep your temper."

"Not exactly Jackson's strong suit," Stiles chortled.

Derek rolled his eyes but then said seriously, "I know that you have the self-discipline to control yourself, Jackson. Stiles thinks you're spoiled, but no one gets as good at lacrosse as you are without working hard at it. Just apply that to not letting anger get out of your control. You don't want to let anyone know they're getting to you, right?"

Stiles fish-mouthed, but Jackson got it. He had his mask of indifference he used with everyone but Lydia and Danny, even when things happened that made him feel awful. He didn't let his real emotions show. He could use the same control to keep the wolf part of him from showing even when he was overwhelmed.

"It's okay to get angry," Derek added, "just use it. It's yours, just like the wolf that's part of you now. You're not it's."

"Got it," Jackson said roughly.

"I just told Scotty not to get mad," Stiles said.

"Scott's not Jackson," Derek replied. "Jackson's smart enough to learn everything he can."

Jackson preened inside.

"Hey, Scott's not dumb!"

"Seriously, Stilinski?" Jackson asked. McCall was a blockhead and being able to breathe and run now hadn't changed that. Stilinski just didn't see it. Or he wasn't letting himself see it.

"He just doesn't think," Stiles admitted sullenly.

"Well, he needs to start, because you aren't a werewolf, Stiles, and you can't do it for him forever, even if he did listen to you."

"Scott listens to me." Even to Jackson that sounded forlorn.

But Jackson was a veteran of the high school social scene. Lydia and he had manipulated their way to the top of popularity. He understood how it worked better than Stilinski ever would, because Stiles genuinely didn't care about it. He was a happy iconoclast – something Jackson had always envied secretly – secure in his identity and his place as the sheriff's son.

McCall was different. He'd never been popular, too wheezy, but he wanted to be. He wanted to be a star of a sports team, and now he was, and had pretty, popular Allison, he'd shed Stilinski without even consciously thinking about it. Jackson had seen it with other kids; friends based on need didn't last after the need was gone. McCall didn't need his 'only' friend anymore, not in his estimate, so he'd drop the weirdo in favor of other popular people. McCall was as selfish as Jackson, he just pretended he wasn't.

At least Jackson was honest about being a dick to everyone.

The werewolf thing complicated the matter, but not enough to change how the high school social matrix functioned.

"Sure," Jackson said.

Stiles flipped him off.

"Get out of here," Derek told them. "I'll call you tomorrow." He picked up his leather jacket and donned it. The Camaro's keys clinked in its pocket.

"Where are you going?" Stiles demanded.

"The cemetery."

"Why?"

"The county won't let me bury Laura here, so I need to find a plot for her," Derek explained.

"Oh." Stiles wrapped his arms around himself. "Fuck. I'm sorry. That's because of me and Scott."

Derek sighed. "Yes. But it's done. At least this way all of her will be buried. I'll do the rest, the wolfsbane rope, after she's there."

Stiles lifted his head. "I could help? I could do the braiding. It wouldn't burn me. Unless it has to be you."

"Aconite is poisonous to humans too."

Jackson told himself to look up everything about aconite. Then he could ask Derek questions about it tomorrow night.

"But not as poisonous, not like burning and anaphylactic shock reactions," Stiles argued. "I just, I feel bad. I'd like to make up for disrespecting her, you know?"

"All right," Derek said. "I'll let you help when it's time." Stiles' sincerity had softened him.

"I'll come," Jackson offered.

"Best not," Derek said. "The less you're visibly linked to me, the safer you'll be."

Jackson waffled between being offended and warmed that Derek was trying to look out for his safety.

He settled on pleased.

Danny's ringtone sounded from his pocket.

Jackson answered it once he was in his car. Stiles drove away first, his rattletrap Jeep lurching into gear with a puff of exhaust smoke. Derek pulled the Camaro away from its spot and followed.

_"Hey, where are you?"_ Danny asked.

_"Out."_

_"Well, come over here. Mom's making poi."_

_"Poi's disgusting."_

_"I know. I don't want to have to eat all of it,"_ Danny laughed. _"Come on, she did a pork roast with banana leaves too. You know it'll be good."_

 

**~~~October 2, 2012~~~**

**Waning Full Moon**

 

Derek found the boy in an empty grave. The instinct to build his pack pushed at him and he could smell that the bite would take. His fangs came down and his mouth filled with saliva.

He looked at the bruises the kid was trying to hide, the blatantly unbelievable explanation he offered for how he'd been left in that hole and guessed the rest.

"You could be strong," he offered, "strong enough to never be trapped again."

Derek flashed his eyes red and began to explain. It was cynical, but he knew if Isaac refused the bite, he could just put the kid back in the grave to be found the next day. Any story he told of werewolves would be dismissed as a hallucination or lies. No one would believe him.

To be fair, because he wasn't Peter or even a lying manipulator like Kate, Derek told Isaac about the hunters and the danger upfront.

Then he waited.

Isaac said yes.

 

**~~~October 3, 2012~~~**

**Waning Full Moon**

 

Derek ghosted through the hospital at night and checked on the redhaired girl. She stayed in a coma.

Derek worried about that.

Peter had bitten her. Just his claws had turned Jackson. Lydia should have turned or died.

Derek had seen a bite rejection. It was fast and ugly and agonizing. He wouldn't wish it on anyone. He didn't wish it for Lydia Martin. But it should have happened if she wasn't going to turn.

He didn't know what it meant. He'd never been the family scholar. He'd never bothered listening in to the lessons his mother shared with Laura. He'd always known his place would be as second to Laura. He'd been happy with that prospect. Leading was a weight he never wanted to shoulder. A beta's life was easier, one he could live comfortably.

He didn't know enough.

He could ask Deaton, who sat in his animal clinic like a spider, patiently waiting for his wards to activate like the threads of web vibrating, but he couldn't trust anything the man said. He couldn't trust Deaton to even know about Lydia Martin. No.

He'd consult with the Dellalunas.

Maybe the girl would wake up. Maybe it wasn't either/or. Life wasn't black and white.

He hoped she lived.

 

**~~~October 4, 2012~~~**

**Waning Moon**

 

Derek told the blonde girl all the dangers too. He did. She just didn't care. The epilepsy would probably kill her eventually, if the misery of her life as it was didn't.

All of that could go away with the Bite. No more seizures. No more medication that left her listless and sick. No more restricted diet. No more mockery and indifference from her peers. She could _live._

There was a fiery anger inside Erica Reyes. Her illness had nearly smothered it, but given just a chance, she could burn like a star.

~~~

Erica and Isaac fell into an easy approximation of friendship. Friendship itself would come later. For now, they had the pack bond, which was stronger in some ways. Their wolf sides were linked tight, by age and circumstance, by their shared alpha.

Derek knew they were both drunk on the power of their new strength and speed, the new existence before them. It was the danger of turning anyone without the support structure of a mature pack to teach and keep them in line.

Not to mention they were teenagers and he knew from experience how utterly stupid teenagers were.

There was Scott to remind him if he'd been in danger of forgetting.

But Scott and Jackson were both proof that they could keep their new selves under wraps, even while Erica was glorying in her freedom, indulging in a sexy makeover that had every straight boy in the high school wishing for looser pants.

Isaac was by nature quieter, but he stood straighter, and wasn't so afraid of being noticed.

Derek hoped for the best. With Jackson, that made three betas. Enough for a stable pack and alpha. Strong enough to hold a territory and fight if necessary.

He knew Stiles would be angry with him for turning two of his school mates, but Derek had little choice. He wasn't in a strong enough position to invite in betas from other packs. Those willing to leave a pack were usually the misfits who couldn't function within one or power-hungry climbers who would try to kill a new alpha for their spark. Omegas were worse, usually so unstable they couldn't integrate, if they weren't traumatized sole survivors of massacred packs. Derek and Laura might have gone that way without each other. He had to turn betas he could control.

Jackson wasn't exactly good with Isaac and Erica, but he worked at it. Making it about his pride motivated Jackson. He made an effort to get along with the two school nobodies, because he wanted to prove Derek was right to have brought him into the pack, even that Peter had been right to turn him in the first place.

They were all still teenagers though and Derek cursed them regularly and himself for choosing them.

 

**~~~October 7~~~**

**Half Moon**

 

Vernon Boyd III found Derek inspecting the abandoned train depot. It was private property, fenced off, and isolated. It still had running water but no electricity, along with abandoned machinery, rail and even subway cars. Part of it was underground for some baffling reason. But there was a great deal on indoor space that could be used for training out of sight and space to hide any vehicles the pack used. The plumbing worked. He just needed to bring in a generator, battery lanterns, and something to sleep on.

It butted into the edge of the forest too.

The sound of a step made Derek turn. It wasn't the stealthy movement of a hunter. Or the authoritative stomp of a cop or someone working security.

Just a tall black teenager with a shaved head walking in to the concrete-cool interior. Derek could see him clearly but knew human eyes would only pick out him as a shadow in the dimness. The light from the doors only reached a quarter of a way through the main room.

"I'm Vernon Boyd," the kid said. He stopped just where the light from the door ended on the floor and the shadows took over. He wasn't full grown, and he was already taller than Derek. He'd likely be six-three or four once he reached adulthood. He smelled like diesel and ice, the high school, sweat, and uneasiness, despite the calm his face projected.

Derek stayed where he was.

"I followed you from Erica's house when you dropped her off."

Derek had driven her because Jackson was taking Isaac home. The Lahey house stood across the street from the Whittemore's McMansion. Erica's family lived in a much lower middle-class neighborhood. With her diagnosis of epilepsy, Erica couldn't get a driver's license even if her family could have afforded to give her a car, and Beacon Hills didn't boast much in the way of public transportation. There were three buses a day. Otherwise, unless you could catch a ride with someone else, you called a taxi, an Uber, bicycled, walked or were screwed.

"Are you a friend of hers?" Derek asked from where he stood. Boyd didn't smell hostile, didn't stand with any aggression.

"No. We go to school together. I pay attention. She's different. McCall changed first. Whittemore hides it better or maybe he just didn't change as much. Lahey and Erica are obvious though."

Boyd shifted his feet.

"She's not sick anymore."

"New medication?"

"Bullshit."

Derek coughed rather than laugh. "Why don't you get to the point?" he asked.

"I told you I pay attention. And Stilinski and McCall aren't exactly subtle. Everyone else thinks they're just into some weird MMORPG or werewolf is code for drug business – "

Derek growled. Those two _idiots._ Of course, they were running their mouths at school and not paying attention to who heard them. Stiles couldn't even pay attention to where his feet and hands were, never mind his words. And McCall… If Peter were alive, Derek would kill him just for biting the worst possible choice.

"Yeah," Boyd agreed, apparently unphased by the savage rumble coming from the darkness. "McCall flashes his eyes a lot too."

Was there some way to resurrect Peter so Derek could kill him again? Painfully?

"So, they're all werewolves. Maybe not Stilinski, but he's part of this, right? And they're… " Boyd finally faltered. "… Happy. They belong to something."

"What do you want?" Derek asked.

"That."

"You want to be a werewolf."

Boyd squared his shoulders, but Derek could hear his heartbeat tick up. "I want to be part of something. I don't want to be alone. I told you I watch. Because no one sees me."

Derek let his eyes flare bright red, so they showed in the darkness before he stepped closer and revealed the rest of himself.

"I see you, Vernon Boyd."

~~~

Later, while they shared take-out burgers and fries, Boyd asked, "Why teenagers, though? Why not bite a couple of deputies, the mayor, people who could use what they do to help you? Adults."

Derek made a face. "Would you want a bond with the mayor?"

Boyd stayed silent, waiting for a real explanation.

"I told you the Bite could kill you. Rejection is a real thing and always fatal."

"What about Lydia?"

Derek had told Boyd about Peter biting Scott and clawing Jackson as well as Lydia's inexplicable coma when he explained the dangers.

Derek chewed a French fry. He'd been thinking about it. "She didn't reject the Bite, or she'd be dead. Instead, it did something different to her."

"Put her in a coma."

"That could be her injuries. My grandmother told stories. She said sometimes the Bite could wake up something in someone who was something else."

"She could be something else? What else is there besides werewolves?"

"Kitsune, yokai, oni, rusalka, selkies, phooka – "

"Vampires?"

"Yes."

"Twilight vampires or Stoker vampires?"

"Closer to Stoker, but there's nothing attractive about them," Derek told him. He and Laura had seen one once in New York. It had been corpse pasty and smelled foul, like rotting blood and mold, as it crawled up a wall.

"They're ambush predators, like a giant nocturnal tick."

"Gross." Boyd bit into the second half of his hamburger, unaffected.

Derek liked him.

"Teenagers," he explained, getting back to Boyd's original question, "have better odds of successfully turning. Your bodies aren't finished growing and your brains are still developing. Teenagers adapt to being werewolves easier than adults. People expect teenagers to change their attitudes and habits, to become secretive and want their privacy."

"To eat more food than seems humanly possible," Boyd said. He'd finished the hamburger and delved in the bag for the second one Derek had ordered for him.

"That too."

Derek took another French fry. They weren't that hot any longer, but he could feel the coarse salt clinging to them and the grease. The smell filled the room, comforting, always the same.

"So stem cells, neuroplasticity, and social flux make teenagers better prospects," Boyd summed up.

"That or someone human born into a pack and raised among them."

"There are humans in packs?"

"Even other creatures sometimes. But humans almost always. Packs that don't have humans stop being able to pass sooner or later, because we aren't, and we need humans as a baseline to remind us how to act. Hard to find a pack-born human to turn though, since they're either turned by their alpha or don't want the Bite."

"Bitten wolves are probably better at acting human."

Derek nodded. Bitten wolves brought their own strengths to a pack and passing as human more easily was only one of them. Born wolves accessed their senses as naturally as breathing. Mixed packs were always stronger and more adaptable.

"Okay," Boyd said. He stuffed all his garbage back in the bag neatly. "I gotta get to the ice rink."

"I'll introduce you to the pack tomorrow night."

"I already know everyone."

"Not as your pack. You're one of us now."

Boyd paused then flashed a broad, white smile.

 

**~~~October 10, 2012~~~**

**Waning Half Moon**

 

The blindfold kept her from seeing anything, but Allison had her ears and that instinct that tells you a room is empty or occupied, no matter how still the occupant. She waited until she knew she was alone and hoped whoever this asshole was didn't have a camera monitoring her. She couldn't let that worry stop her; she had to get free and get out. Her skin was still crawling from the things he'd said and the way he'd touched her.

The muscle twitching came from the Taser he'd used on her.

Whoever had her wasn't a werewolf. He wasn't strong enough; he'd needed the taser to deal with her. He wore too much bad cologne and hadn't showered recently. She'd kicked him in the shin and he'd still been limping when he tied her to the chair. Ergo, no fast healing, no werewolf.

That didn't mean anything good, though.

Allison squirmed and twisted until the chair fell over. Then she inch-wormed until she found a wall, got her feet under her and battered the chair against it until it broke.

That freed her up enough to work off the blindfold and the rest of her bonds.

She jammed pieces of the chair under the door to stop it, then figured out she was in a basement.

The basement had a disconnected washing machine and a rusted-out water heater. She found a pipe wrench and screwdriver with a broken handle behind the heater, furred with dust and old cobwebs.

Armed with those, Allison pried open a window that most people wouldn't have considered big enough for a child to fit through, boosted herself up and squeezed her way out. She didn't have big breasts, but they scraped and squished painfully. She'd have bruises along her hips too. So much for a future career as a cat burglar.

She found herself in the backyard of an abandoned house outside town limits.

A sound from inside galvanized her and she ran. She found the road but felt afraid to stay too close to it. She ghosted along on the far side of the ditch instead and took cover in the weeds or brush whenever she heard a vehicle. She stuck to shadows and the backroads. After everything that had happened with Kate and the werewolves, she had no idea who might have kidnapped her, so she trusted no one not to be involved.

She wanted to go home. There were guns there. Knives. Her crossbow. Nastier Tasers than the kidnapping asshole had had.

Filthy, bruised, mud-encrusted, with burrs, pine needles and cobwebs in her hair, she tiptoed into the kitchen. She stayed quiet out of an abundance of paranoia – what if the asshole had friends who were there?

Her mother was frosting a cake as Allison came inside and locked the door behind her.

Her mother checked the clock on the stove and called out, "Chris, she's home."

She expected concern and questions. She got a smile and a nod.

Allison's dad came in and smiled at her. "You freed yourself in under two hours. And you didn't get caught again," he said. "That's excellent."

Allison's thoughts went blank. "What?"

"Your hunter training just started. First lesson, save yourself."

"You passed," her mom added. She looked up from the cake and smiled in approval. "Faster than I did. You made it all the way back here. You did very well." She gestured to the cake. "Congratulations."

"That was all – you had me kidnapped?" Allison blurted.

"You weren't hurt."

"That creep groped me! He stuck his hands down my pants!" Allison screeched. She'd thought she was going to be raped. She furiously threw the rusty pipe wrench she'd clutched all the way across town. It hit the tile floor with an ugly clang and crack.

"Damn it," her mother muttered.

"That shouldn't have happened," Chris said darkly. "Bennett will be censured – "

"Censured!? I know what that means," Allison snapped. Bitterness filled her. "Keep your cake. Keep your hate and your hunters. The 'monsters' look better and better in comparison to you and Aunt Kate."

"Allison, no matter what you think," her father said swiftly, "do not talk like that when your grandfather gets here."

"What?"

"Gerard is coming. He'll be staying in the guest room," her mother said.

"Your aunt is moving back to the house she rented, now that the repairs are finished and she's feeling better."

Allison would be glad to have Kate gone, but her grandfather was no better. She'd always felt uncomfortable around him.

She made a face at the thought of him staying in the same house. He was exactly like Aunt Kate, only not fun, not easy to be around. She'd always felt judged by him and now she knew at least part of why. He was a hunter and hadn't approved of keeping her in the dark.

He probably would have started training her before she started school. She shivered. As creepy as what had happened today had been, she couldn't imagine what kind of 'training' hunters inflicted on younger children.

"Great," she snapped. "I need a shower." She walked through the kitchen and headed for her room to clean up. Her parents said nothing.

God, she felt stupid.

She stared at her wrists again, the fading marks, and realized she should have known something was off. What kidnappers took so much care to not leave any marks?

Visible marks, Allison corrected herself, because what Bennett had done wouldn't fade as fast, if ever.

She'd never walk outside alone without being conscious of dark panel vans, the shadows that could hold an attacker, the men whose hands could force her against her will, the possibility of assault. It was different from the werewolves; like wild animals, she knew if she left them alone, they would ignore her. She could control any interaction. She couldn't control human beings. She'd never feel as safe, as oblivious, as she had earlier that day.

Maybe that was better for her survival, but she couldn't make herself feel any gratitude.

~~~

Alan sought out the new Hale alpha. He'd never liked Derek, but there was little choice left for him under the circumstances. Certainly, Derek would be better than Peter. Peter had always been too clever by half.

He hoped Derek would be easier to direct and expected it would be so. The boy had been born to be a beta; his sister had been the one taught to become an alpha.

He nodded to himself as he turned his vehicle off the highway onto the private drive that led into the Preserve and the Hale house. He could work with Derek. Mold him, teach him what was necessary, consolidate his position as Emissary to the Hale Pack.

There was Scott as well. He would urge Derek to take on Scott as the Pack's second. Scott trusted Alan. He could use that to destabilize the pack if Derek strayed from Alan's plan.

He could even use Scott to take over if necessary. It would be tragic to lose the Hale genetics, of course, and their capacity to make the full shift, but perhaps he could urge Derek to have a child for that very reason, then put Scott in place as Alpha and oversee raising a Hale heir…

He took in the old cabin. It had no water, plumbing or electricity and had never appeared on any map. Hales had built it with little more than sheer strength and their claws. The pack had used it as a place to stash clothes for full moon runs.

He'd guessed Derek might come here, where no one would guess anyone would stay.

A dust-coated black Camaro was parked under a Digger pine.

Alan parked behind it.

Derek was waiting in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, face unreadable.

Alan was surprised by how powerful the new alpha felt, considering he had no pack left, and no training. Talia had the same aura; she hadn't been particularly tall or muscled, but she had always seemed bigger than anyone else, with an innate strength.

Derek's green eyes bled crimson as Alan approached.

"Derek," Alan greeted him. "I don't know if you remember me – "

"Deaton."

Derek didn't unfold his arms or come down the half rotten steps.

"I was your mother's Emissary," Alan said. "Laura never contacted me, but I feel that it is my duty to offer you my services for your pack now that you are here in Beacon Hills again."

"Because you aren't welcome anywhere else, with any other pack," Derek stated.

Alan stilled. He had to school his face into neutrality.

"I've talked to the Dellalunas," Derek said.

Keeping his mask of poise was an effort. "They are biased. They wouldn't want you to have a powerful Emissary, now that they've taken over as the most powerful pack in the state."

"Maybe, but Julia Baccari wasn't. She told me it wasn't hard to heal Peter at all. You could have done it. You could have contacted Laura. Maybe you even could have done a better job warding our house against hunters."

"You know nothing," Alan snapped. "You're ignorant and dangerous. Without an emissary, you'll fail as alpha. You need me."

"Then I'm shit out of luck, because I'll never trust you," Derek said. "Now get out of here."

~~~

She woke from dreams of snakes, of smooth scales, lamian coils, a tongue forked and flickering.

 

**~~~October 11, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

 

The gas station attendant never had a chance. He heard a thump and something that might have been a call for help from the restroom and went to check it out. People did disgusting stuff in public bathrooms and he really hoped he wouldn't have to call the cops because a junkie ODed in there or worse. It sounded like there was a big animal in there, though how the hell anyone managed that he didn't know.

"Hey, everything all right in there? You gotta say something or I'm going to come in to check everything's okay," he called out.

The silence didn't reassure him.

He used his master key and opened the door. At first, he didn't see anything, only noticed the smell.

It smelled like the reptile house at the zoo.

Then he looked up and began screaming, until he couldn't any longer.

~~~

Melissa heard about it in the nurse's break room, down the hall from the emergency department, while she was contemplating the healthy salad option or the delicious donuts Marge had brought in.

The Martin girl had come out of her coma around two in the afternoon.

She'd sat up in bed, screaming.

"Like a banshee," Kari said. She'd been working the fourth floor, come off that shift and wasn't bothering going home before she picked up a second, night shift in the E/D. Instead she was napping in the break room. Or talking. She needed the extra money to replace her dying refrigerator. She'd described it thus: _I can have food or a refrigerator to keep it in but not both and make the mortgage_. Melissa knew the feeling and had bowed out to let her take the extra shift.

"I swear it made my ears hurt. And it woke up everyone up in the Psych Ward."

Melissa didn't know Lydia Martin, but she knew through Scott that Stiles had had a crush on the girl since grade school.

"Everything seem okay with her?" she asked. She'd let Scott know and he could tell Stiles. Maybe he could curry some favor if he brought her flowers.

"She's still healing up from that mountain lion attack or whatever it was," Kari said, "and she's going to need some more plastic surgery for the scars, but she was fully oriented and lucid. Guess she woke up reliving the attack."

"Poor girl."

"Are you going to eat that donut or just look at it longingly?"

Melissa closed the box regretfully. She'd stick with the salad. "I'm going to have a glass of wine with my dinner tonight," she declared, "while you're dealing with the morons, drunks and food poisoning."

Kari groaned. "God, is the Chinese takeout place open again? I'm rethinking this extra shift."

"Oh, no, you're stuck," Mellssa told her. "You asked for it. And you get Helloween night shift too."

"Anyone told you what a stone-cold bitch you are, McCall?"

Melissa poked at her salad. "You would be too if you had to eat this."

~~~

Stiles was distracted and a distracted Stiles really shouldn't be behind the wheel of a vehicle, but Roscoe needed gas if he wanted his baby to get him to school the next day. Not that he had any great desire to go to school, where Scott would sulk, everyone else would ignore him, and Harris would have some new excuse to call him out. The guy was such a prick. Maybe he could persuade one of the werewolves to frame him for something so embarrassing he'd have to quit and have plastic surgery to change his face before moving to the Himalayas to live as a hermit under a false name.

He jumped the curb turning into the gas station lot, rolled too far past the working pump (the second one had plastic wrapped around the pump nozzle so it was out of order) and had to reverse and then he caught the tail of his flannel shirt in the driver's door when he closed it and nearly fell into his rear view mirror.

Not his most graceful moment, but a quick look around proved no one had seen his embarrassment.

If you do something humiliating where no one can see, he wondered, do you have to be embarrassed?

Apparently, yes, since he'd gone red in the face by the time he freed himself and ambled inside. Then he knocked over a display of snack-sized chips because he was looking down and pulling out his wadded-up bunch of ones and fives to pay.

"Ooops, sorry, I can pick that all up – " he blurted, stuck between looking over at the check-out counter and at the floor so he didn't step on any chip bags and sort of freezing in place. He expected the attendant to be giving him that tired-of-this shit, judgey look he got from Scott's mom a lot.

No look, though, because no one was there.

Stiles shrugged and began picking up the bags and pushing them willy-nilly back on the stand. Maybe the dude had to take a piss. Weird. Stiles got gas there regularly and he knew the policy was to lock the store up if the attendant had to go outside or into the backroom. He'd had to loiter until the guy got back more than once.

It kind of sucked though, because Coach had had to let them all skip practice so he could go to a doctor's appointment. He was getting a barium enema, which he had described to everyone in hideous detail before sending them home early. Now Stiles was wasting his free afternoon waiting to buy gasoline.

He double-checked the neon Open sign was on. Yep. He could smell coffee in the coffee machine. He peeked over the check-out counter. No one was passed out on the floor on the other side.

Stiles drummed his fingers on the counter and shrugged. Maybe the guy hadn't heard the bell when the doors opened. Time was wasting and Stiles wasn't at all sure Roscoe would make it to the gas station across town.

He threaded through the aisles of motor oil, overpriced toilet paper, and unappetizing pastries to the door into the backroom and opened it. "Hey, anyone in here?" he called. "I just want to pump some gas, dude. You can beat off after I leave."

That was probably not the best way to get the guy to come up front and do his job.

Only Stiles didn't hear or see anyone. The backroom wasn't so big he could miss a person.

"Okay, whatever," he mumbled to himself and headed back to the counter via the candy aisle. He picked up a package of Twizzlers and a can of Monster and took it up front, perched on the counter and consumed both while texting Scott and his dad.

His dad wasn't going to make it home for dinner. Again. Stiles tried to decide if he should go over to Scott's for some video gaming and trying to wrangle him into maybe trying out Derek's pack, try to find Derek and hang out with the rest of the werewolves, or just go home, order a double-stuffed all meat pizza with extra cheese and mushrooms and veg out.

Scott finally replied to Stiles' offer to hang out. He was going to see Allison. Which meant he was going to moon around her house, since she was forbidden to see him. Something about hunters not dating werewolves or possibly her tanking grades. And she didn't want to see him, something Scott was conveniently ignoring. Stiles thought he was being stupid and acting like a stalker, but since he didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't know anything about being in _love_.

It was both nauseating and annoying.

Also annoying, watching two different cars pull in and the drivers pay for their gas at the pumps because they had credit cards. Stiles was absolutely responsible enough to handle a credit card. Or at least a debit card. No matter what his dad said about not needing to go into debt before he took out any student loans for college.

He sat there another hour, streaming dumb dog videos that he sent to Scott, and the caffeine in the drink he had did what it does. Stiles had to pee.

He was bored and had to pee, so he was going to do that, then turn on the pump, leave his cash and a hand-written receipt and gas up Roscoe so he could go the fuck home.

Being polite, he knocked on the restroom door before trying the handle, even though he knew no one had come inside while he was there.

Stiles opened the door. The reek of blood and viscera made him reel back from the room. Red painted the tiles from floor to ceiling. There were pieces. Pieces of flesh and the white of bone and parts that looked green along with yellow-tinted fat.

He shouted, slammed the door shut, and bolted outside.

Hands shaking, Stiles called up the contact for his dad and shouted, "There's a dead guy in the bathroom!"

_"Stiles – "_

"So dead, Dad, he's like, murdered dead, and there's blood everywhere. Fuck. Fuck, he was in there the whole time – "

_"Stiles, where are you?"_

"Gas station," Stiles gasped and clutched at his chest, feeling like he couldn't breathe, as he sank down on the pavement. "I can't – I can't – "

_"Are you in danger? Is there anyone else there?"_

"I don't know! I didn't think anyone was here!" Stiles shouted. He clutched his phone like a lifeline. Panic swamped his thoughts. The edges of his sight grayed out.

_"We're on our way,"_ his dad said. Stiles could hear sirens. " _Just listen to me. Can you get to the Jeep? If you can, lock yourself inside. If you can't, that's okay, I'm going to be right there. Just listen to me – "_

"Can't breathe – "

_"Count with me. One, breathe in, two, hold on, three, let it go, four, you can rest. Count on your fingers… "_

Stiles counted his fingers and let his dad coach him in how to breathe.

He'd been having a good day, before.

 

**~~~October 12, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

 

Allison stopped Stiles before they went into school. Scott spotted her, of course, and started over so she had to hurry.

"Here," she said, slipping the Taser from her purse and handing it to Stiles. "I heard about yesterday."

"Whu – ?"

"Electricity disrupts werewolves' ability to shift or use their strength. It takes a lot though, so this is amped higher than normal."

Stiles stuffed the Taser into his backpack. "Thanks, I guess. How did you – "

Allison glanced back and saw Scott was just a couple cars away.

"I got it from my dad for protection. I'm going to get one for Lydia too."

"Yeah, sure, wait – she's awake!?"

"Yesterday," Allison said.

The first period bell sounded.

"Allison – " Scott called to her.

She sprinted for the doors.

 

**~~~October 13, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

 

Chris turned his face away and Kate laughed as the omega they'd trapped just outside town begged for mercy.

Gerard had never had any mercy.

He and Kate were already plotting how to catch and kill Derek Hale and any betas he'd made since becoming alpha. They didn't even pretend that it mattered if the betas had killed an innocent or not.

He knew Victoria wouldn't care either, but it sickened Chris. There was a Code and if hunters didn't follow it, they were no better than murderers.

At least Allison hadn't been indoctrinated with his father's hate. She avoided Gerard and when she couldn't, stayed silent. Chris wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't relaying anything Gerard or Kate let slip to the werewolves through the Stilinski boy at school. He was only surprised she was staying away from McCall.

Allison was a smart girl, though. She might be sneaking around behind their backs. Or she thought McCall would be safer if she kept her distance from him.

Either way, Chris wasn't going to push her about it. His days of being able to order her around because she was a child were numbered.

The only reason Chris was even allowing Gerard to stay with them was so he could keep track of what his father was planning.

The same reason that found him in the woods the day after the full moon, along with Gerard, Kate, and two of Gerard's favorite hunters.

They all laughed as Gerard hefted a bastard hand-and-a-half sword that had been in the Argent family for generations and hacked the omega in two. The poor bastard had two crossbow bolts in him and had been hoisted by his bound hands to hang from a pine tree. He tried to twist away, but the sword still bit into his side below the ribcage.

It took an interminable amount of time for Gerard to successfully bisect the werewolf.

As he wiped the blood from the sword's blade with a handkerchief, Gerard commented, "Wouldn't want the edge to get rusty."

Chris bit back the words that wanted to burst out him, that Gerard might as well use a butcher's cleaver if he was too weak to make a clean kill. His father used to be stronger; he used to cleave a werewolf in two with a single strike from that same sword.

He used to admire his father.

Leveque asked, "Shall we dispose of the body?"

Gerard chuckled. "Leave it. Let the monsters know we're coming."

Kate was staring at the blood drenching the ground, her mouth open and her eyes glazed.

"Take the damned quarrels," Chris said. "I don't want local law enforcement asking questions if they were purchased from my store."

Bennett rolled his eyes at Chris.

It snapped Chris' temper. He had Bennett by the throat, his .45 shoved up under the hunter's chin where the flesh was soft. He clicked off the safety.

"Listen to me, you piece of shit. You put your hands on Allison during the training op." Chris pushed the muzzle of the .45 deeper. Bennett tried to hit the side of his face. Chris rocked away from the blow with practiced ease. He was used to reacting and thinking fast enough to deal with attacking werewolves. He kneed Bennett in the gonads and immediately stepped away, letting Bennett fall to his hands and knees and puke into the mulchy pine needles. It was possible Chris had ruptured something.

"Touch Allison or any woman like that again and I'll dispose of you just like any other vermin," Chris told Bennett. He lifted his head and caught Leveque's attention. "Tell anyone else coming into Beacon Hills that goes for them too.

Chris safed the pistol and holstered it. It was the same one he'd used to threaten McCall when he caught the boy making out with Allison weeks back. It seemed like a lifetime.

Gerard laughed.

"Good to see you still have some fire, son, even if you were a little hard on our friend. Allison's a beautiful girl; he was only acting believably. I heard she did an excellent job and escaped in record time."

Kate walked over and helped Bennett to his feet. Then he squealed and fell down into his own puke, seizing. She held up the Taser she'd used on him.

"No one touches Allison – "

"Kate, enough!" Gerard ordered. "Leveque, get him on his feet. It's time to go."

"Allison – "

"It's time Allison learned. It seems like she can take care of herself. Chris and Victoria may not have raised her as a proper hunter, but they did see she had training."

Self-defense and weapons, it would have been strange for a gun dealer not to teach his child to shoot, but Chris had never wanted this for their daughter.

Kate hissed angrily under her breath but said nothing more as they left the dead omega behind. They were beside a hiking trail. He would be found soon enough.

~~~

"A dog walker found the body," Tara told him.

Noah studied the pictures. "God damn it." He scrubbed at his jaw. He needed a shave. He'd never even made it home last night, ending up showering and changing into a fresh uniform at the station. His shaver was at home, though. "What the hell was someone doing out there last night? There's a god damn curfew!" He'd had to fight the mayor just a week before to get it.

"Evening poop walk and the Newfie broke the lead, probably when it smelled the blood."

"All right, show this to Agent Tyhurst. Maybe he can use those CBI resources to find out if there are any crimes like this anywhere else in the state or get a faster response from ViCAP. Get an ID on the victim."

"There was nothing on him. He looks like a drifter, maybe homeless. Sheriff – "

"I know, Tara. It looks too damned much like Laura and Peter Hale."

First the gas station attendant, now this John Doe.

 

**~~~October 14, 2012~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

  

"Since you don't have time to come home for dinner," Stiles declared as he came into Noah's office, "dinner is coming to you, courtesy of your thoughtful, caring son." He set the bag of Tupperware with still warm food inside on the corner of Noah's desk. "Voila! Vegetarian lasagna, quinoa and kale salad, and yoghurt parfaits!"

"Stiles – "

"I picked up the dry cleaning too and brought you a fresh uniform," Stiles went on, hanging the bag on the coat stand. "And your shaver, because Daddio, I have to say the two-day scruff is not a look for the Sheriff. I mean, some guys can rock it, but you need to look spiffy."

Noah sighed, because Stiles' efforts were thoughtful and helpful and would save him looking rumpled and overworked to the public, even if he was in fact rumpled and overworked.

There was no way he was thanking the kid for quinoa and kale salad though. That was punishment.

"So, hey, what's the whats with the cases?" Stiles asked as he settled himself – more like flung himself down, limbs akimbo – on the office's battered couch.

"That's confidential, Stiles, you know that."

"But I found the guy!" Stiles whined.

"And wasn't that bad enough?"

Stiles winced.

Tara knocked and poked her head in. "Hey, Stiles."

"Hey, Tara. There's enough food for you too."

"Quinoa and kale salad," Noah said. "Don't you want some? Good for the waist line."

"Are you implying I need to worry about my waistline, Sheriff?" Tara mock-glared at him.

"Not in the least." So much for pawning it off on Tara.

"I thought I'd let you know, Haigh and that CBI agent just dragged Derek Hale in. I can't see they have any reason, either, but Haigh told me to fuck off. I'm writing his ass up for that."

"Shit. Did they arrest him?"

"Brought him in for 'questioning'," Tara said.

Christ, that numbnuts was going to get the county and the sheriff's department sued for harassment and false arrest.

"Get Haigh in here. Stiles, you're going to have to go." Noah was going to rip Haigh a new one, but he wouldn't do it in front of his teenage kid.

"But dinner – "

"I'll eat it latter." And dispose of the salad from hell discreetly. Maybe he'd make Haigh eat it.

"Come on, kiddo," Tara said.

Stiles levered himself to his feet with a groan. "I don't know why you're making me leave, everyone knows Haigh's a jerk-off."

"Out," Noah ordered.

~~~

Stiles peeled off from Tara when she headed for Haigh's desk. He hoped his dad laid into the deputy. Stiles had run into and had run ins with Haigh more than once. The guy just shouldn't be a cop. He was crooked as a dog's hindleg.

Jackson had boasted in the locker room that Haigh had let him buy his way out of multiple traffic citations and one DUI. Stiles had even phoned in an anonymous tip about it, but nothing came of it.

He couldn't believe Derek had let himself be arrested again. Then again, what was he going to do? Stiles shivered. Derek could have easily over-powered or killed Haigh and the CBI guy.

Probably, Derek was doing his stoneface impression and keeping his mouth shut. Maybe he needed to have someone call his lawyers though?

Stiles could do that.

He just needed to sneak past Tara to get to the holding cells.

And Tara was busy with Haigh. Stiles pumped his fist in victory. Maybe Derek would even have clue who was killing people now. Or why. Because no way was that loser at the Chevron a werewolf.

He stealth-walked, doing his best 'who me? Nothing to see, not doing anything, pay no attention' act toward the door that led from the station's bullpen to the corridor with the interrogation rooms and then the holding cells.

The CBI agent was going through ahead of him. Stiles cursed under his breath, then whispered _whoa_ as the guy reached up and turned the surveillance camera so it no longer covered one side of the corridor. He did it from directly beneath, in the camera's blindspot. Stiles almost admired the trick. If he'd disabled the camera, someone would have come to check it, but it wasn't likely anyone would notice it was mis-adjusted.

That wasn't suspicious, no sir.

Stiles snuck into the corridor. He stood on his toes and redirected the camera so it would take in everything in time to see the CBI guy fire a Taser into one of the holding cells.

Since the guy had brought Derek in, Stiles figured it was fair to assume that it was Derek in the cell getting electrified.

There was a thud and the CBI guy, who Stiles was beginning to suspect was not a good guy at all, and probably a hunter, unlocked the cell door. He stepped inside and Stiles raced down the corridor, suddenly afraid of what the guy was going to do to Derek.

"Hey – !" he started to yell as he skidded to a stop in front of the cell. Derek was on the floor, twitching from the Taser, but the CBI agent/hunter must have heard Stiles coming. He grabbed Stiles and jerked him into the cell, then slammed him against the bars.

Everything went white with pain for a second, then Stiles couldn't breathe, because the absolutely a bad guy was choking him. Stiles kicked and hit at him, but it did no good. The creep was stronger and bigger than him. Stiles was going to die looking at his fucking ugly face, at chapped lips peeled back from the guy's gritted teeth –

Bad guy yelled in surprise – and probably pain given the snap of a bone – as Derek tore him away from Stiles.

"Run!" Derek shouted. It was a theme with the two of them.

Bad guy pulled a hypodermic from his coat and tried to slam it into Derek's arm only to be tossed into the corridor like a rag. The needle dropped onto the floor and broke.

Gasping and unable to shout, Stiles staggered back down the corridor toward the bullpen.

He slammed the doors open as loudly as he could to draw attention. Tara saw him and sprinted over, followed by two more deputies. Tara went to check out Stiles' neck.

He shook his head and pointed toward the cells. Rasped out, "CBI guy." Gasp. "Kill me." He didn't want them to think it was Derek. "Tried to." He started coughing. "Help Derek." Derek probably didn't need any help, but it would get the right idea across. The coughing made his throat hurt worse and his head throb.

"Go," Tara ordered the other two. "SHERIFF!" she shouted next. She hustled Stiles toward a rolling chair and pressed him down into it, then gently tipped his chin up. "Right hand for yes, left hand for no, don't talk anymore."

Since Stiles was still trying to suck in enough oxygen, he was good with that. His dad barreled out of his office. "What the hell happened!?"

"Don't know yet," Tara said. "Stiles has been choked – "

"CBI guy," Stiles insisted.

"Stop talking. Remember. Left no, right yes. Don't move your head. Can you breathe?"

Stiles flailed his right hand.

"Good. Does it hurt to swallow?"

Right hand. Stiles wiggled it. It hurt but no worse than when he had bronchitis that time. He'd coughed so hard he lost his voice.

"Okay. Sheriff, I think we should take him to the hospital. His throat could swell shut and occlude his airway," Tara said.

"I'll take him right now," his dad declared. "Tara, find out what the hell happened and call me."

His dad helped him to his feet and guided Stiles out to a cruiser. He used the siren on the way. It wasn't as much fun as when Stiles' was eight. Maybe it was the whole being choked to death thing.

Stiles closed his eyes and tried not the cough.

~~~

Noah read the paper in front of him again, trying to make sense of it. Not that it wasn't clear. Stiles had insisted on writing down what had happened and, oddly, the act of writing the facts focused his son far more than when he was talking. Noah had no doubt the events had happened as Stiles described.

Stiles had heard Derek Hale had been brought in and seen Agent Tyhurst going back to the holding cells and followed him. Tyhurst had deliberately misaligned the surveillance camera, tasered Hale and gone inside his cell. When Stiles interrupted him, he'd attacked Stiles and choked him.

The bruises were red, vivid, and darkening to purple for anyone to see. Tyhurst was damned lucky Noah didn't have his hands on him. He'd have wrung his damn neck. Stiles was his _son_. He kept an expression of concern and calm on his face, but inside Noah was furious.

Hale had pulled Tyhurst off Stiles. Thank God. Whatever Hale was involved in, he'd earned a large measure of slack from Noah Stilinski with that one action.

Stiles had run for help after that. That was all Stiles knew.

Tara had called while the E/D doctors were examining Stiles. They were worried about crush damage to his vocal cords and the possibility of swelling. Stiles was under strict orders not to talk and it was about killing him.

Tara's news only added to Noah's frustration. Nothing made any damn sense and that, more than danger, terrified him. He couldn't protect anyone if he didn't know what the hell was going on.

By the time the deputies had reached the holding cells, both Tyhurst and Hale were gone. A Taser had been recovered along with a hypodermic needle. They'd dusted both and found fingerprints that weren't Hale's. When they'd run a comparison, though, they hadn't matched the prints on file for Agent Tyhurst. The contents of the hypodermic were being tested.

Tara had called the CBI only to discover that Alan Tyhurst's body had been recovered from a flooded rice field west of Sacramento. He'd been dead long enough they'd identified him through his dental work. His badge, ID, and weapon had all been missing. He'd died of a gunshot.

Tyhurst had been dead the entire time a man masquerading as him had been in Beacon Hills.

Tara had also recovered the surveillance video from the corridor. It swiveled over to the far side, concealing the imposter's approach to Hale's cell, then swiveled back – thanks to Stiles – to show the man doing exactly what Stiles had described.

It showed Stiles running down the hallway, being pulled into the cell and then staggering out. The arm visible did not belong to Hale. The imposter was thrown out of the cell next. He hit the bars of the cell on the other side and went down. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the emergency exit.

Hale had followed him out, moving like he hurt, the wires from the broken off Taser darts still dangling from his chest.

Both men were in the wind.

And Noah had no idea what was going on. What kind of lunatic _– fanatic_ , whispered the part of Noah that had served overseas – pretended to be a state law enforcement official and tried to kill a man in the police station?

The same kind that killed a CBI agent so he could insert himself in an investigation. The same kind who murdered Dan Briggs and John Doe? Maybe the same person who killed Peter Hale, his nurse, and the others?

Could one person have done all this?

Noah looked at his son. Stiles had come close to dying today. Noah didn't know what else Stiles knew or how he was involved in the insanity that seemed to have come to roost in his town, but he knew until this killer or killers were caught, Stiles was in danger.

He needed to swallow his pride and do what he should have done after the third murder. There was a serial killer operating in Beacon Hills.

It was time to call in the FBI.

 

**~~~October 26, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

 

His new pet, Gerard thought, could be so useful. He should kill it. But first he would use it.

It was just luck he'd discovered it when it killed Bennett, but he'd had the same intention, and it needed a master after all.

 

 

**~~~October 31, 2012~~~**

**Waning Hunter's Moon**

Noah didn't bother with the local FBI office. He didn't need to deal with Rafe's shit on top of yet another murder. This time it was trick-or-treaters that found the mutilated body. His request was likely stuck in bureaucratic slow motion and he needed their help now.

He called in a couple of favors and got the number for the Behavioral Analysis Unit's liaison and described what was happening to Agent Jareau. She assured him they would bump Beacon Hills to the top of their caseload whether they paperwork had come through or not.

Noah thanked her and went back to reading the same case files again. There had to be something.

**~~~November 6, 2012~~~**

**Half Moon**

**Election Day**

 

Alan's wards only warned him of supernatural trespassers at the clinic, they didn't stop them. He'd grown sloppy about them too until recently. Beacon Hills had been untroubled by much in the way of crime. Until recently. Now people were locking their doors even when they were home.

Alan had locked the clinic back door. He'd just finished locking the front.

He really should have invested in a security system that would stop humans, in addition to a simple door lock, especially considering as a veterinarian he had medical supplies that included drugs like ketamine and painkillers.

Frankly, an addict looking for his next fix would have been more welcome than the man he found waiting in his office.

"Clinic hours are 9 to 6, weekdays," Alan said mildly.

"Oh, my pet doesn't need a check-up," Gerard Argent told him with a smug gesture. "I'm here for my 'prescription'."

Alan considered the creature crouched at Gerard's feet. It lifted its head, hissed, and lashed its heavy reptilian tail. Claws screeched against his tile floor. Slit-pupiled yellow eyes watched him. Whoever it had been, the shift rendered them completely unrecognizable. He kept his expression calm while recoiling inside. A kanima in full transformation controlled by Gerard Argent was a horrifying prospect.

He couldn't have come up with a more nightmarish scenario.

"I'll get it," he said tightly.

Gerard gestured him to do so.

Alan skirted the kanima and went to the glass front cabinet behind his desk. It was warded against being broken into or opened by anyone but him. The contents were rare and expensive and quite dangerous in many cases. He unlocked it and then opened a beautiful puzzle box made of rosewood inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl. He touched the inlay in a pattern, releasing the spell that kept it locked under his breath. The interior was lined in crimson velvet cradling a cork-stoppered glass bottle. The contents were pea-sized boluses of unicorn blood. Each one would heal a true innocent of anything. For a man like Gerard, they would beat back the cancer eating him from inside for perhaps a week.

He brought the bottle to Gerard and handed it over. "This is the last."

"You'll get me more." Gerard made it a threat without adding _or else_.

"There _is_ not more to get, for you or anyone. It won't keep working for you anyway."

"Then get me something else!"

The kanima hissed and tensed, ready to leap at him.

"There is nothing. Druidic magic cannot undo what nature intends," Alan told him severely. "There is no reason for you to come here again. I can be no more help to you."

Ashes of rowan could stop a kanima, because underneath all else, it was a therianthrope, and he had pocketed a container of it while retrieving the unicorn blood.

That would leave him to face the threat of Gerard, though. Alan expected Gerard was armed. Hunters were too paranoid to go unarmed anywhere, certainly not into a room with any sort of magic worker. Druids, witches, sparks, every sort of practitioner… Hunters hated them all, just not as much as werewolves.

Given an excuse, Gerard would kill Alan. No, not even an excuse. Gerard would kill him once he was no longer useful.

"No, I think you will keep helping me. I need information I'm sure you have," Gerard said.

"I'm a veterinarian. I spay dogs and worm cats. Information on anything other than treating animals lies outside my purview."

"True, the Hale Pack hardly needs an Emissary these days, do they?" Gerard taunted him with a smirk. "But I doubt you've forgotten everything you knew. I doubt it very much." He snapped his fingers and the kanima prowled toward Alan. It hissed again, long, forked tongue flickering forward as it tested the air around him.

If he'd felt a frisson when he heard Derek Hale had returned to Beacon Hills, he felt a Katabatic blowing down his spine now.

"You know, I think it can _taste_ guilt," Gerard remarked. He snapped his fingers again and the kanima returned to his side, subsiding there, but still staring at Alan. "Fortunately, almost everyone feels guilty about something."

Except sociopaths like Gerard Argent and his daughter.

"Tell me who the alpha is now," Gerard commanded.

"Derek Hale," Alan answered, the twinge of guilt not enough to measure against the threat Gerard and the kanima posed.

"Truth," Gerard said with a smile and a nod. The light from the lamp caught on liver spots and the crepe texture of his skin. Age was not being at all kind to him. Even the yellow tint of the bulb in the lamp couldn't give him healthy color. "That's good. I'm glad you're being honest."

Alan waited patiently, knowing Gerard wouldn't be able to stay silent too long. He wanted a response and Alan's quiet would frustrate him into poking at him some more.

"Tell me where the beast has his lair."

He raised his eyebrows. "I have no idea. Why would I? As you noted, the Hale Pack no longer requires an Emissary. Derek hasn't approached me, and I have no intention of offering him my services." Not again, not after Derek had rejected him so unequivocally. He had no intention of admitting that to Gerard, though. Let him think Alan disdained acting for Derek. Which he did. He could tell Gerard about the cabin in the mountains, of course, if he had to. Although, Derek wouldn't be there any longer now he knew Alan knew about it.

He'd keep that scrap of information to himself until he needed it, he decided.

"I need an alpha," Gerard gritted out.

"You're the hunter, you should be able to find one," Alan said.

"Don't get smart with me, druid."

"I'm afraid I can't help you find Derek."

Gerard glowered at him.

"You should leave," Alan told him. "I have nothing to tell you."

Gerard pushed himself to his feet, hands on Alan's desk, and the effort it took made Alan look at him with an expert eye. Gerard wasn't just showing his age. He was sicker than when Alan had seen him last. His clothes were subtly too loose. The right size for his height and bone structure, but not for his weight, not any longer.

"You used to be so chatty," Gerard remarked. "Remember when you used to share so much when good people came to you for your knowledge, Deaton? I do. The wolves didn't, though, did they? They didn't know how proud you were, how you bragged about the powerful pack you 'advised'."

Now that Alan was looking for it, he could almost see the sickness eating Gerard up from inside. If he'd been close enough, he could have smelled it like a werewolf. Balance, he thought, was poisoning the old man from the inside. The body reflecting the soul.

The kanima reared up and rested its front legs on the edge of Alan's desk. Viscous venom oozed off its talons as it racked them deep into the wood. It thrashed its tail, which knocked over a half full wastebasket.

"I need an alpha, Deaton, and if you can't tell me where I can get Hale, then you can give me the name of another. Don't pretend you don't know of any other packs."

Alan looked at the kanima. It took an immense effort to maintain his composure.

"Ito," he said. "Satomi Ito. Hill Valley Pack."

She had turned him away when he approached her after the fire, even though her pack had no emissary. She'd ordered him out of her territory. She'd likely been the one to turn the Dellalunas against him. He ignored the ugly feeling he was betraying what he should have been protecting. He owed Satomi Ito nothing.

"Now, that wasn't so hard," Gerard said with another smirk. "Who are her betas? How many?"

Alan didn't know. "it's been six years. Her pack are all bitten. Omegas. One of them runs a nursery. Schall. She runs the pack like a commune. Wolves join and sometimes leave for more formal packs. Ah, there are orphans she took in from a pack killed by hunters. High school age."

Hill Valley was too small to maintain its own high school. Most of the kids from there attended BHHS. The rest went to a prep and boarding school that taught all grades.

"And are they students at my school?" Gerard asked eagerly.

"They go to the prep school."

"Devenford." Gerard's lip curled. Alan wondered if Gerard hadn't tried to inveigle himself into the semi-exclusive school and failed. Hill Valley lay far enough from the conjunction of ley lines that marked Beacon Hills that the magical white noise leaking from them didn't 'deafen' its inhabitants to the strange or alarming. Someone there might look too closely at a Hunter instead of complacently accepting whatever he said. Alan himself had been fooled when he first met the man, so had many a dead werewolf.

"Names," Gerard demanded, startling Alan out of his thoughts.

"Talbott. I don't know their names, just that the survivors of the Talbott pack were taken in by Hill Valley. I don't know the names of any other betas." Satomi 'rehabilitated' betas and omegas and they often moved on to packs that were a better fit for their real world skills and education. Werewolves had to work too. Others hung around the area because the stray power from the ley lines made them stronger.

Alan could have helped those wolves, but his one offer had been rebuffed. With teeth. He added sourly, "I'm not welcome in Hill Valley territory."

"Tut tut," Gerard said in mock sympathy. "Who would want a failed emissary playing Druid games in their backyard?" He shook his head at that.

"Satomi is old and set in her ways," Alan said primly. From his predecessor's notes, he knew the Ito alpha had been old even before World War I. Grandmother Wolf was still strong and clever. Gerard wouldn't take her easily.

"Talbotts," Gerard mused. "They died in a tragic fire. Bad wiring. It's a national disgrace."

Alan didn't let himself react. Another fire. More dead wolves. He hadn't known how the Talbotts were killed, had only heard from his sister of the two children going to Grandmother Wolf.

"We lost track of those two," Gerard mused. He sounded pleased. "Sloppy work. I think I'll take a drive out to Hill Valley soon. Clean up Kate's latest mess."

The kanima hissed alarmingly. Gerard ignored it and walked carefully past Alan to the door. He stopped and turned back. "Oh, and, Alan? Don't forget to vote."

Once Gerard was gone, Alan gloved up and carefully scraped up the venom the kanima had left behind into a jar. The paralytic worked on werewolves as well as humans and so few things did. It went into the cabinet. It wasn't as rare as unicorn blood, but eventually he would find a use for it. Or sell it to another practitioner.

Alan methodically closed and replaced the rosewood box next then relocked his cabinet, resetting the wards. He trusted Scott not to steal, but all teenagers were curious. He might snoop.

He did it all slowly, letting the adrenaline wash out of his system, not letting his hands shake now that the kanima was gone. He didn't let the relief flow through him until he had locked his office door and sat down. Then it made him gasp in several deep breaths.

He knew why Gerard wanted an alpha now. The man was running out of time and had no more solutions. There were The Doctors, but Alan was even more afraid of them than Gerard and the kanima. Put them together? No. Let him kill an alpha, let him become what he loathed, just to hold onto his life.

If there was balance in the world, Gerard's compromised system would reject the Bite.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this part is beta-ed. Nothing major will change when I get back to it. Occasionally I add a sentence for clarification. As always, see something stupid, say so.

**~~~November 8, Morning~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

Emily took the seat next to Reid at the table. Usually, Morgan sat there, but Reid didn't seem up to Morgan's brand of friendly teasing today. Morgan would rein it in during the briefing anyway, but Emily considered the change of seating the sort of small thing she could do without making a point of it.

Reid didn't appreciate being considered as fragile. Nor was he. But he hadn't been at his best lately.

They all agreed not to profile each other, but it was impossible to work so closely with a group and not pick up on their tells, their vulnerabilities and quirks.

Morgan raised an eyebrow at her when he sat. Emily kept her expression placid. Rossi took the fourth seat as JJ and Hotch entered the room, followed by a bustling Garcia.

Penelope Garcia wore a green dress with lemons and lemon slices decorating it and another pastel yellow cardigan along with platform sandals. Her candy floss hair was done in ringlets. Rhinestones glinted on her glasses. She was a gaudy, zaftig bird of paradise among the Bureau's solemn crows. She kept them all sane. Emily loved her without reservation.

"Hello, hello, my brilliant, beautiful agents," Garcia greeted them, ending with a wink for Morgan. Emily smiled at her; it was impossible not to. "We are going to California. Doesn't that sound wonderful? That's the only part of this that does, sadly."

Catching JJ's worried look and Hotch's serious expression confirmed that.

"Garcia," Hotch said, "you can begin."

Garcia used a remote and the large plasma screen placed so everyone at the table could see lit with a collage of crime reports, photographs, and a map. Emily knew all the same information would be available in the files laid out at each seat and on the tablet in front of her, but she'd have to tab through it. The plasma gave them a sense of the scope of the case.

"Beacon Hills is the county seat of Beacon County," Garcia began. She brought the map of northern California to the forefront and highlighted the town. "It's also the largest town in the county, though that isn't saying much. Most of the county is state or national park land." She highlighted another huge swathe of land that bordered right on the town. "In addition, there's the Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve, which everyone treats like public land, but is actually a privately held by the Wilma Howard Hale Trust and administered by the Hale Estate."

"That's a lot of land," Rossi pointed out. "Small towns… Are there Hales there? How much influence do they exert?"

"Sorta and they haven't been around for a while," Garcia answered. She blinked rapidly, her expression turning sad.

"We'll get to that," Hotch added repressively. He clearly didn't want to get off track yet. He nodded to Garcia to continue.

"In the last two months, there have been nine murders in and around Beacon Hills and one that needs to be re-evaluated," Garcia said.

"Ten deaths and they're just calling on us now!?" Morgan exclaimed.

"Sheriff Stilinski did request additional manpower and lab work from the California Bureau of Investigation first," Hotch explained, "but there has been a complication with the CBI, resulting in our involvement."

Everyone at the table traded glances. Emily could see them speculating just as she was. Complication? It sounded like either the Sheriff's Office or the CBI had been compromised. No one would be happy to see them. Local law enforcement regularly become defensive at what they considered federal interference. Add in the possibly of in-house corruption or a dirty cop and the investigation would inevitably be a clusterfuck, no matter how diplomatically JJ and Hotch played it.

Garcia took over again and highlighted a New York State driver's license for a strikingly beautiful, dark-haired young woman. "This is Laura Hale."

"As in the Wilma Hale Trust," Rossi said.

"You guessed it, sir. She was found dead on a jogging trail in the Preserve August 27." A second photo, clearly taken at a crime scene, showed the nude lower portion of a woman's body. "Or rather, half of her was."

"That's ugly," Morgan muttered. "Any sign of sexual elements?"

"Small mercies, " Garcia answered. "No."

She made the picture go away.

"The Sheriff's Office began a search for the rest of her body immediately, but it wasn't recovered until September 2. Her brother had buried that part of her. The family used to live in house in the center of the Preserve, you see, though it burned six years ago."

This was accompanied with a wide-angle picture of the burnt shell of a large, graciously styled house. Garcia pulled up another driver's license over it, this time showing a young man with a distinct resemblance to Laura Hale. "This is Derek Hale. Apparently, there is a secret rule of the universe that anyone named Derek is just insanely hot and handsome."

"Derek Hale was the initial suspect in his sister's death," Hotch explained. "He had an unbreakable alibi for her time of death, however; he was on dash cam being ticketed for speeding in Pennsylvania."

Rossi paged through the files. "He was driving cross country from New York, where he lived with his sister, and didn't reach Beacon Hills until several days later. What brought them both back?"

"Good question. Hale didn't say."

"Why drive?" Emily asked, checking through the file herself. He was a handsome young man, though he had a murderous glare. Pale eyes, color indistinguishable in the ID photo, but described as green.

"According to records, Laura Hale booked a red-eye flight into Sacramento International and headed to Beacon Hills. Derek began paying off any bills, closed up their apartment, gave notice where they worked, and then followed her with the car they shared," Hotch said.

"Whatever it was, she considered it urgent." Emily agreed with Rossi's estimate. "And permanent. They weren't coming back."

Morgan slapped his hand down on file in front of him on the table. "Do you believe this? This woman was torn up, stripped naked, chopped in two and the coroner declares her death by 'misadventure' and an animal attack?"

Hotch nodded. "Beacon Hills has had the same coroner for twenty years. There's normally little need for a dedicated M.E. and the county is always strapped for cash."

"So, the coroner blew it, but they released Hale because even if it was murder, it wasn't him," Emily summed up. "Did he say why he buried her rather than calling the police?"

"No. In fact, he said nothing from the time he was taken into custody until his release," Hotch said.

"Takes his right to remain silent seriously," Rossi commented.

"The rest of the Hale family, except one uncle who was burned and left catatonic and in long-term care, died in the house fire. Remains were not recovered," Reid read from the file. "In a sense, they're still in the house."

He'd already absorbed everything from the file and spoke without consulting it. "He may have wanted to lay her to rest with them or as close to as possible and believed calling in the authorities would interfere with that. There is a distinct difference between an unmarked grave and the cemetery where all the rest of their family were buried, psychologically."

Emily looked at the picture of Derek Hale again. He was just twenty-one and basically alone in the world. "He didn't kill his sister, but what about the other deaths?"

"The other deaths were all found to be murder," Garcia explained. She centered two mug shots. "Burt Reddick and Donald Unger. Both men were found at an illegal campground in the Preserve. They suffered multiple broken bones before they were eviscerated. The killer then shoved their faces into the campfire while they were bleeding to death. Ironic considering both men had long records of petty crime and arson for profit."

"The arsonist gets burned. Could we be looking at a moral enforcer?" Morgan asked. "The punishment fits the crime?"

Hotch's laconic, "Possibly," tacitly commanded Morgan to stop speculating while not shutting down the avenue of investigation.

"In case you were wondering, Derek Hale was in San Francisco the day before until the day after Unger and Reddick were killed," Garcia said. "Which makes me happy, because no one who shares the name of my chocolate god and looks that good should be a killer."

Morgan flushed and rolled his eyes at Garcia's blatant flattery, giving everyone a second to smile. "Baby girl, are you saying you think this Hale guy compares to me?" He pressed his hand over his heart. "You're killing me."

Garcia smirked at him. "You may have competition, but you'll always top my list, honey bear."

Everyone laughed, but only for a moment, before Hotch got them back on track. "Garcia."

"Right, right, moving along, Paul Baumann, a video store clerk at what might be the last video rental store in the US."

Mr. Baumann also sported a mugshot and criminal record. He'd been a teenage fire-setter. He'd also had arrests for drunk and disorderly, DUI, and drug possession.

"Baumann also suffered multiple broken bones and was eviscerated, but the unsub was interrupted by a customer. The customer was knocked out and unable to offer a description, unfortunately."

"The unsub wasn't afraid to handle two able-bodied men before and Baumann was already incapacitated," Rossi said thoughtfully. "But he knocks out the customer and potential witness and leaves him essentially unharmed."

"His victims are specific not random," Emily agreed.

Reid squinted. "Garcia, are there any other pictures of the body _in situ_? I can't make out what's in his mouth."

"There are, but I can tell you, my eagle-eyed detective. It's a red plastic cigarette lighter. Before you ask, Baumann quit smoking six years ago according to his girlfriend. She said he started attending church back then. It's where they met. He stopped smoking and drinking cold turkey and then did a month-long stint in a church-affiliated rehab center. He'd been clean ever since."

Morgan was frowning, dark brows drawn down. "We need to find out whether the unsub brought the lighter with him."

Hotch made a note.

Garcia continued, "Garrison Myers was a school bus driver. He was attacked and killed in an actual school bus that was parked in the maintenance yard at the high school." His license photo showed a heavyset man in his fifties or sixties, with the red bloom of a drinker across his cheeks.

The crime scene photos were in color and showed the bus interior coated in blood and scorch marks. Myers was still recognizable in them.

"The unsub tortured Myers, but he actually suffered a myocardial infarction from the stress and pain," Hotch said. "The unsub doused him in alcohol from his own flask and tossed a match on him to light it port-mortem."

"Do we know if Myers had any criminal record?" Morgan asked. "School bus drivers usually have to have a background check, don't they?"

"I will find out just as soon as I can get back to my babies," Garcia promised.

"I want deep background checks on all the victims," Hotch directed. "The obvious connections between them may be obscuring the real link in the killer's mind."

"On it, sir." Garcia teetered out of the briefing room. Hotch picked up the plasma remote and continued the briefing.

"Myers was followed by Milos Jurasik, the local high school custodian. Jurasik's neck was snapped, along with several bones, but there was no evisceration or torture or burning. He appears to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If there is a link, Garcia will find it. The unsub trapped and terrorized several students who were at the school late to serve detention. None of them saw him clearly, although one of them, Scott McCall, identified him as Derek Hale."

"Mr. Hale again," Rossi murmured.

"Hale has since been cleared of that murder too," Hotch said dryly.

"The customer who interrupted the Baumann killings was one of the students at the high school," Reid said. "Myers drove a bus route for the high school."

"Beacon Hills only has one high school. Anyone wanting an alternative has to home school or send their children to Devenford Prepatory Academy in Hill Valley, twenty miles away," JJ said.

Emily realized JJ hadn't spoken until now. JJ had a thick file folder on the table before her and her fingers were pressed flat against it, as if to hold it closed. It gave Emily a bad feeling. JJ had something else there that was going to play into this case. Something that bothered JJ, which meant it would get to all of them too.

"It gets worse," Hotch said. "September 23rd, Nurse Melissa McCall discovered that Peter Hale was missing from Beacon Crossing Long-Term Care. She's an emergency room nurse at Beacon Hills Hospital. The Long-Term Care facility is associated with BCH, and nurses often pick up extra shifts there. The regular shift nurse, Jennifer Webb, had failed to show."

"Melissa McCall is also Scott McCall's mother," Rossi contributed. "Nice looking woman. Divorced, trying to make the mortgage and raise a teenager, it's is a hard job." He tapped one paper. "She's had her husband in court twice over failure to pay child support. He lives out of state."

"Not a new story, man," Morgan said. "Some men are scum."

Rossi looked up with an angry scowl. "None of my ex-wives had to take me to court and I never walked out on a child."

"Not much we can do – "

"Oh, see, that's where you're wrong this time. Turns out Rafael McCall is with the Bureau," Rossi said. "Hotch?"

Hotch's mouth twitched. "I'll speak to his supervisor when the case is closed."

Agent McCall was in for a demotion, Emily predicted. But Hotch wouldn't stop with that, since it wouldn't help Ms. McCall and her son. McCall was going to find his paycheck garnished and liens against his bank accounts and any cars or property he owned. People forgot that Hotch had been a hotshot prosecutor before moving into direct law enforcement to their peril. McCall wouldn't be facing off against the FBI, he'd be facing Hotch in court, and Hotch would eat his lawyers alive.

Rossi nodded once in Hotch's direction.

"September 28th, Peter Hale's body was discovered in the facility's parking lot. It had been carefully placed in a surveillance blind spot. Peter Hale had burn scars over thirty percent of his body from the house fire that killed the rest of his family. He was bisected post-mortem. The unsub lit him on fire after shooting him, tearing his throat out, and cutting in two. Unlike Laura Hale, he was clothed and both pieces of his body were discovered together, but the similarities are too obvious to dismiss."

Emily suppressed a shudder. This unsub would be a bad one.

"We need to have Laura Hale's body examined and a second autopsy performed by a qualified pathologist," Emily said.

"Already arranged. The Sheriff pushed it through. Both Hales have been shipped to Sacramento. The Bureau team there may have some results by the time we set down at Sacramento International."

"That's just seven deaths, though," Emily pointed out.

Hotch frowned. "Yes. During the examination of Peter Hale's dump site, one of the deputies observed a distinct smell of putrefaction coming from a car parked nearby. The car belonged to Jennifer Webb. Her body was discovered in the trunk. Her throat had been cut. She had also suffered a blow to the head, but no other wounds."

Reid sat forward, intent. "She was found after Peter Hale but died before him."

"Yes." Hotch waited for whatever Reid had figured out with the same steady patience he offered all of them.

"She probably interrupted the unsub taking Peter Hale. Like Jurasik, she was in the way."

"Jurasik and Webb were collateral casualties, no connection to the unsub's projection, so they didn't get burned," Morgan contributed.

"Laura Hale wasn't burned," Emily said to play devil's advocate. "And why terrorize the high school kids?"

"Anger. He didn't figure out what really completed his fantasy until Unger or Reddick," Morgan offered. "If burning the victims is part of a compulsion, then without that, killing Baumann may not have provided any satisfaction. They interfered."

"We need to find out more about Peter Hale's history," Rossi concluded. "Could he have been tied to the fire that killed the other Hales? If not in reality, then in the unsub's mind?"

Emily agreed. Peter Hale's death was no coincidence.

"Our unsub doesn't like Hales," Rossi said. His sharp gaze shifted to the driver's license photo of Derek Hale.

"If that's true, Derek Hale may be in a great deal of danger," Hotch said.

"You don't think he's the unsub or in league with them?" Emily asked.

"JJ," Hotch said.

JJ pushed the heavy file in front of her forward. "Six years ago, then _Deputy_ Stilinski referred the case of a suspicious house fire that trapped eleven people inside, killing them, and leaving only one survivor – who was pulled out by firefighters – and two minors who weren't there at the time of the fire. He thought the fire was arson and hoped for an opinion if it could have been the result of a hate crime or if the two minors could have been involved."

"Peter Hale was the survivor, Laura and Derek were the minors," Rossi said.

JJ nodded. She had her lips pressed together.

"It was turned over to Gideon. Before he could begin a profile, the then Sheriff retracted Deputy Stilinski's request. The case had been closed; the fire ruled an accident."

"We need to have an arson expert go over everything in that file, then go through it for links to the current spate of victims," Hotch said.

Emily guessed JJ was thinking that if Gideon had gone ahead with the profile or the BAU had done more, then the murders now wouldn't have happened. It was impossible to say, though. The Bureau couldn't just shoulder its way in wherever it wanted. The case had been closed. There had been no reason to question that then.

"Wait," she said. "That's still not everyone, is it?" They hadn't been called in for any of these deaths. Something else had happened, pushing Sheriff Stilinski to finally ask for the BAU's help again, despite whatever reluctance the previous, failed request had instilled. It was November now and the killings mentioned so far had occurred in September, a full month before.

"A gas station attendant was found slaughtered in the bathroom where he worked on October 11th." Hotch displayed several color crime scene photographs. The victim _had_ been slaughtered. No other word conveyed the level of dismemberment. Pieces of the body were scattered on the floor and counters. Every surface was sprayed with blood. One picture showed a length of gleaming viscera piled in the sink. The victim's head sat in the toilet. "The Sheriff's son discovered the body of Dan Briggs in the late afternoon. Multiple customers had been in and out without trying the bathroom door. Most paid for their gas with a card at the pumps. Several left cash for their purchases."

"Small town honesty," Rossi said, like it was weirder than murder.

"Others took the lack of an attendant as license to help themselves," Hotch reassured him. The Earth had not reversed its rotation.

Beside Emily, Reid gulped. He said in a higher than usual tone. "No fire. No bisection."

"Change in pattern?" Rossi speculated. "Copycat?"

"Or being cut in two is reserved for Hales," Morgan said.

"Apparently not," Hotch said. "A dog walker discovered the body of an unidentified homeless man. He suffered penetrating wounds to his abdomen and shoulder that weren't lethal. He was hung from his wrists."

Another photo showed what Hotch had described, but there was more. Only the man's upper torso hung from the tree limb above him. He had been cut in two. His lower torso and legs lay on the ground in a black pool of dried blood. His organs, unsupported, had slipped and dangled from the opened digestive cavity.

Emily had to look away, careful not to look down at the printed-out files that held copies of that photograph and the rest. She'd been to too many crime scenes and body dumps; her imagination supplied the smell and the evil buzz of flies.

"Are we sure he wasn't a Hale?"

"They're all accounted for," Reid answered her.

"Blood splatter analysis indicated the victim was alive when he was bisected," Hotch relayed in a toneless voice. A muscle twitched in his cheek. He wasn't unaffected either.

"That's just sick," Morgan declared.

"The unsub is devolving," Rossi said. "Briggs' death is more brutal and out of control. The man in the woods could almost be another unsub if the torso bisection weren't so unique. Neither are burned and no effort was made toward any sort of fire… "

"Hale to Hale, all the targeted victims between were linked to fire in some fashion," Emily observed. Jurasik and Webb were incidental; the unsub had killed everyone on a list. Then the gap until October. "But he can't stop. The unsub had reasons for the killings, but he's discovered it feels good."

"Too good to stop. He'll rationalize reasons to keep killing."

"If he's decompensating, victimology will become less and less useful and he'll accelerate," Hotch agreed. He straightened the files before him. "One more thing."

"What?" Rossi asked.

"A CBI agent sent to Beacon Hills brought in Derek Hale. He attempted to strangle the sheriff's son when he was interrupted after tasering Hale. He had a syringe of an unidentified substance on him. He fled, as did Hale, after Hale pulled him off the boy."

"What the hell?" Morgan exclaimed.

This was why the use of CBI resources was 'complicated'. Good God. Could the agent be the unsub?

"Who was the agent?" Reid asked.

"Agent Alan Tyhurst," Hotch said. "Or, rather, a man pretending to be Tyhurst. The real Agent Tyhurst was murdered shortly after he was assigned the case. His body was recovered from a rice field west of Sacramento. Shot. His credentials and weapon were missing."

"Is there a reason we don't think the imposter is the unsub?" Emily asked.

"The imposter was alibied by deputies in three instances."

Emily nodded to herself. She'd called it. This was going to be a clusterfuck. Weird, nasty, and twisted.

"Then we need to re-evaluate everything we just came up with," she said. "Not one unsub."

"Two," Reid agreed. "At least."

"We can go over it again on the jet," Hotch said. "Garcia should have her travel gear packed and ready. Get your go bags. We're wheels up in forty-five."

"Garcia's coming with us?" Reid asked.

"Given the involvement of a hacker in backstopping Tyhurst's imposter's identity within CBI, her abilities may be useful on-site," Hotch said placidly. "Beacon Hills is isolated, but it has broadband internet and satellite links. I want her double-checking the BCSD's computer security and ours while we're there."

~~~

The local Bureau office had arranged four SUVs for them. Two agents helped load their bags and Garcia's gear. SSA Pouncey had ten years on everyone in the BAU but Rossi, skin much darker than Morgan's, towered over everyone and a firm, dry handshake. Hotch liked him immediately as he explained, "I figured you'd want to head out immediately."

"Yes."

Pouncey nodded to the files he'd handed over. "I know your computer analyst can pull anything digital and probably already has, so I made some calls and tried to put together some information that never made the official files."

"I appreciate it."

"This thing with the imposter CBI agent has stirred up a hornet's nest. A few years ago, they had a mole working for Red John."

"We profiled him, but were never called in," Hotch said of the notorious California serial killer. They were walking across the tarmac toward the first SUV. Occasionally, noise from vehicles or planes landing and taking off made them stop talking until they could hear again. It might be November, but November in California was a far cry from the East Coast. He could feel the heat of the afternoon sun soaking into the shoulders of his dark suit.

Sacramento International occupied an area that had once been agricultural land between the city and the river with direct access to Interstate Five. If Hotch looked south east, he could just glimpse Sacramento's modest downtown skyscrapers. In the years he'd been with the BAU, he'd flown into the airport on multiple occasions. It made him feel old to see how the suburban sprawl had crept out to it.

"I talked to the chief of corrections officers at Susanville, the Lassen and Shasta County Sheriffs, and a friend of mine in the Forest Service up there," Pouncey went on. "They told me some stuff no one wanted written down."

Hotch felt his eyebrows rise. Pouncey looked past him, watching as a fuel truck drew up the FBI jet.

"Accepted knowledge is that Beacon County is pretty quiet," Pouncey said quietly. "But strange shit goes on up in those woods and I'm not talking about Bigfoot sightings." A flash of a smile punctuated that. "Though they get that too."

"I'll be on the look-out," Hotch replied dryly.

Pouncey pressed his lips together to smother another smile. He got it. He went on, "People go out in the woods, especially the mountains, and they aren't prepared. People disappear. A lot of people disappear in Beacon County. They have for _decades_. The statistics don't show it, because they're always 3Hs."

"3Hs?"

"Hippies, hikers, and homeless," Pouncey clarified. "No one looks for someone who isn't missed."

Unfortunately, Hotch knew that was all too true. Homeless and sex workers were often preferential targets of killers. There were society's most vulnerable minority; crime against them regularly ignored or dismissed. Too often they had no one to care if something happened to them nor anyone who even noticed. The hikers might be missed by their families, but if they weren't from Beacon County, wouldn't impact the missing persons statistics there.

"Was the old Sheriff corrupt?" Hotch asked idly.

"So bad you could smell it down here," Pouncey replied. Disgust colored his tone. Hotch shared it. "What I heard is he wasn't even an honest crook – he didn't stay bought."

"He'd flip for a better offer."

"That's the rumor."

Rossi waved to indicate they were ready to move out.

"What about Stilinski?"

Pouncey straightened his subtly slumped shoulders. "Honest. Did a stint in the Marines, went to school at American College here afterward, got married, moved back to his hometown, took a job as deputy, had a kid. Six years ago, his wife died. Crawled in a bottle for a while, then pulled himself together and ran for Sheriff. According to the people I talked to, he cleaned up the department and is well-liked by everyone that's worked with him."

"Why didn't he call us sooner?"

"Something you won't find written anywhere," Pouncey said. "The last SAC here was Rafael McCall. He was a deputy in Beacon County around the same time Stilinski was and left when Stilinski took over as Sheriff."

Hotch felt no guilt in sharing a truth. "McCall hasn't been paying his child support."

Pouncey snorted, wordlessly communicating his lack of surprise. "McCall would actively delay or shitcan anything coming from BCSD."

"Is this documented?"

"He covered his tracks."

Hotch thought he would find time to lunch with Stewart at OPR. Failure to pay child support wasn't enough to move on McCall, but deliberate interference with Bureau relations with law enforcement was enough to launch an internal investigation.

"Anything else?"

Pouncey shook his head. He drew out a card and jotted a number on it. "My private cell."

Hotch carefully put the card away. "Thank you."

~~~

Hotch took the wheel of one SUV. Rossi, Prentiss and Morgan drove the others. JJ rode with him, working the phones, while their small convoy sped up I-5. Garcia took the passenger seat with Morgan to no one's surprise, while Reid rode with Prentiss. Rossi insisted he was fine driving on his own. They would depart the Interstate at Redding. It was the last major urban center and would offer somewhere easy and acceptable to stop to eat and rest. After that they'd be driving two lane highways and mountain roads for several hours.

He turned over what Pouncey had told them as he drove.

Decades of disappearances that were never reported. Of course, without reports, the disappearances were merely rumor, but somewhere there would be the grain of truth that sprouted the rumors.

Was that coincidence or tied into the current murders?

Had Stilinski reached out for help before and been stymied by Agent McCall? McCall had joined the FBI after leaving the Beacon County Sheriff's Department. The Bureau did background checks on all their recruits, but had they missed something? Hotch hated bad agents even more than bad cops; it reflected badly on all the Bureau.

Damn. He hoped McCall was just another shitty human being and not tied into whatever was happening in Beacon County.

They needed to know more, much more than had been in the file sent by the Beacon County Sheriff's Department to the BAU with their request for the BAU's help.

No matter what Morgan had thought during the case briefing, Hotch could find nothing the Sheriff's Office had failed to properly investigate. Even Laura Hale's death had been treated as the suspicious death it was before the coroner brought in the erroneous finding of misadventure. Unless the unsub – if it was just one – decompensated severely in the next days, Hotch worried they would not close this case fast.

He hoped they made it home for Thanksgiving. He wanted to share that with Jack.

Hotch pushed that to the back of his list of worries. They would all do what they had to do.

~~~

They rolled into Beacon Hills after dark, passing the Welcome sign and the pale bulk of the county hospital to Dave Rossi's relief. The county seat was still small enough there was no difficulty navigating to the police station.

The drive had turned winding northeast of Redding and climbed through at least one pass, with curves where only a flimsy metal railing separated the pavement from steep drops into gorges filled with pine trees and brush. Periodically road signs warned against deer crossing and rock falls.

They passed the high school. Floodlights lit the grounds, but the dark of the forest crowded close just beyond.

No place in Beacon Hills was far from wilderness. It crowded close, hills giving way to a mountain range that tied into the Sierra Nevadas, dense timber looming in every direction.

Exhaustion dragged at Rossi, more than the three-hour time difference between east and west coast; a reminder he wasn't as young as he once was. Hell, he'd retired once already.

He already didn't like Beacon Hills. Didn't like its isolation, its insularity. No one came or went without being seen. He didn't trust places like it. They were too incestuous, they bred their own monsters, just the way the city slums did, but did it behind an ingenuous mask of normality.

He parked next to Hotch's vehicle and joined him as the others pulled up and left their vehicles.

Emily subtly stretched and shook out her fingers before doing a habitual check of the holstered weapon riding at her hip. Reid turned in a slow circle, taking in the front of the police station, the county jail an aging block structure behind it, the parking lot, and the old-fashioned courthouse across the street, with granite steps leading up to a colonnade with three-story Doric columns in front of the main doors. Lights shone from inside. Garcia was drooping but shook it off as they all headed inside.

Rossi's first surprise was the slim black woman manning the front desk. Her name badge identified her as Officer Washington. He hadn't expected this backwater to to sport many female officers or be visibly integrated. She smiled when Hotch presented his ID and immediately buzzed for someone to take them inside.

"Sheriff Stilinski went home to have dinner with his son," she said. "It'll take ten minutes to get him back here. Chief Deputy Graeme can get you set up."

Rossi remembered Stilinski was a widower. He probably made a point of spending his evenings home with his son. He wasn't surprised as Hotch demurred. "If your Chief Deputy can handle it, let the Sheriff finish his meal."

"You're all booked into the Comfort Inn Suites on the east side of town," Officer Washington said. "I can call them, so they have everything ready for you to check in." She smiled. "It just went up a couple years ago and it's much better than any place else in town. The diner across the street is good; Casa Pollo down the block has the best Mexican in the north state. There's a Starbuck's, Dutch Bros., and Bean & Nothingness, which has coffee and vegetarian food." She lowered her voice. "If you value your digestive system, don't eat anything from the gas station on the corner."

Small towns, Rossi thought to himself, but he took the advice about the gas station's food to heart. His digestion had long since adapted to near constant travel, but food poisoning was nothing he wanted to experience again.

"Thank you," JJ told Officer Washington warmly.

Chief Deputy Graeme arrived and introductions were made. She was in her thirties and black as well. "Call me Tara," she said as they shook hands. She shepherded them back into the offices. "We don't have a lot of room, so unless you object, we're giving you our briefing room and the break room. Noah's on his way."

First name, not last or title, Rossi noted. Small police forces tended toward familiarity, of course, but Graeme obviously was at ease with her superior. Which meant Stilinski wasn't a stickler for formality. That would make everything easier. Was there more between him and Graeme? He'd have to watch them together to determine that.

"I expect that will be fine," JJ assured her.

"I just need somewhere to plug in my babies," Garcia added.

"You brought your own equipment?" Graeme asked.

"I need to set up a dedicated sat link," Garcia explained. "I've customized a lot of my gear too. I'll hook into your systems lickety-split, though, and I promise I will not be in the way."

Graeme chuckled. "Don't let Stiles get his mitts on any of your stuff."

"Stiles?"

"The Sheriff's son. He'll try to poke his nose in everywhere it doesn't belong, but he's not a bad kid. I say that as someone who has babysat him many, many times."

She led them to the briefing room, which was more than large enough for their purposes, so it was agreed that the break room would continue as such. Graeme pointed at a tall blond deputy with a mouth full of energy bar. "Strauss. Round up Findlay and help Ms. Garcia bring in her equipment. Put all that gym time to use for once."

Garcia was still fussing with her computers when Sheriff Noah Stilinski arrived. A break for dinner hadn't done much to restore him; weariness sat on Stilinski's shoulders. It gave a gray, washed out cast to his sandy brown hair and blue eyes.

Rossi watched him with Deputy Graeme for a moment. Friendly and at ease, no sexual component, and Graeme, who had struck Rossi as a sharp cookie, showed a quiet respect for her boss. She listened to him, then laughed, before leaving.

"You made good time from Sacramento," Stilinski commented.

"Our local office organized everything for us."

Stilinski made a noncommittal sound in his throat. "I'll give you two of my deputies to guide you to the Hale house and all the locations in the Preserve tomorrow. The last one is still taped off. The bus Garrison Myers was killed in is at the impound lot, the video store is still closed down and sealed, but the gas station re-opened over a week ago." He squinted at Hotch. "I can take you to any of those now, if you want to get right into it."

Rossi wondered if the gas station where Dan Briggs had died was the same one Washington had warned them against.

"The video store," Hotch said. "Dave, take Reid with you. The unsub was interrupted there; he may have left something behind."

~~~

Forensic science operated on the assumption that transfer was inevitable. Anyone at a crime scene would leave something behind and take something away. The lighter shoved in Paul Baumann's mouth had been plucked from a display at the check-out counter. The unsub had left neither prints or hairs and taken his weapon with him. There was no way yet to know what the unsub had picked up, but the scene offered no useful new evidence.

The lock to the rear fire exit had been broken, but no prints were recovered. A Crime Scene Unit borrowed from nearby Shasta County had examined the employee parking area fruitlessly. A single camera covered the lot, which served two other businesses – a liquor store and a unisex hair salon that failed during the 2008 banking crisis. It was angled to take in the lot entrance and the liquor store's loading area; the unsub never showed up on it.

The video store probably made any profit from the extensive convenience store snacks and drinks it offered along with the tired selection of DVDs. It was a nightmare of prints. As Sheriff Stilinski dourly pointed out, taking the prints had been an exercise SOP that would tell them nothing; the unsub likely wore gloves.

While there had been blood in the storeroom where the unsub had killed Baumann, he hadn't been careless. There was no damning, nine-point match bloody fingerprint to compare in any database. No fingerprints that didn't belong to the scene at all.

Stilinski walked them through what they knew and theorized had happened.

The store stayed open until ten pm Sunday through Thursday, eleven Friday and Saturday. It did a lot of cross business with the liquor store and the pizza joint two blocks away.

"The movie theater here closed about ten years ago," Stilinski explained. "If you want to see something before it streams on video you have to drive down to Redding. The kids mostly make do with parties and the high school's lacrosse games on Friday nights. The rest of us settle for a pizza and a six-pack."

Dave hoped his cringe didn't show. It sounded like backwoods hell to him.

They were walking around the employee parking lot. Streetlights illuminated it and the street, but just beyond the pools of light, forest pressed close and dark. It would have been simple for the unsub the arrive and leave unseen, skirting along the edge.

Stilinski caught Dave staring into the darkened trees. "I hope you brought hiking boots."

Dave suppressed a smile. They'd all learned that even in urban conditions, it paid to have protective footwear at many scenes. His elegant Italian leather shoes were for the office, not the field. Everyone packed something practical in their go-bags. Perhaps not as practical as Emily's black combat boots, but something they could tromp through the woods in comfortably.

"We did," Reid assured him, missing or more likely ignoring the curl of mockery in Stilinski's tone.

To Stilinski's credit, he hadn't betrayed a hint of doubt that Reid could be an agent at his age in either word or expression. His investigation to date was thorough and complete as his resources allowed.

"I was just wondering about drugs," Dave commented.

Stilinski huffed out a laugh. "It's Northern California. Of course, there's drugs, but we're too far from the I-5 corridor to get as much as Redding and the rest catch." His gaze moved to the woods too. "The terrain's a problem for the marijuana farmers here; steep, inaccessible, too cold a lot of the time, not enough water. The drought didn't do the growers any favors."

Dave laughed despite himself. There was a climate change consequence he'd never considered.

"We get some, I'm not denying it, but not the big operations."

Stilinski shoved his hands in his pockets. "We get indoor growers, like everywhere else, prescription drugs, meth labs, but the big business up here is honey oil." Squint lines bracketed his blue eyes. "They set up out in the national forest."

"Not the Preserve?" Reid asked.

"Funny, but no, not until recently. There used to be a rumor, 'if you go out in the Preserve to do bad things, bad things will happen to you'." Stilinski chuckled. "What's the country equivalent of an urban legend?"

"Local legend or folktale," Reid replied.

Stilinski eyed him. "Yeah," he drawled. "Sounds like what my kid would tell me. We used to get stories about people being chased by big dogs and howling when I was a kid. The only thing I've ever heard is some coyotes, though. Might have been someone with a pack of coonhounds doing some spotlighting back in the day, though."

"The last documented gray wolf in California was killed in 1924," Reid said. "California Fish & Wildlife are not re-introducing them, but there are documented packs, some with radio collars, in Oregon and it is possible one or more may have traveled south. They're quite shy of humans provided they're healthy. They're currently an Endangered Species list and killing one is a federal crime."

"Tell it to the hunters," Stilinski said. "If they see a wolf, they're going with three Ss, just like they do with a mountain lion."

"Shoot, shovel, and shut-up?" Reid questioned.

Stilinski made a noise of agreement and disapproval. "Most of them can't tell a cow from a deer. Big talk, lots of beer."

"Human nature," Dave agreed.

"Seen enough?" Stilinski asked.

Dave glanced at Reid, who nodded.

"I'll take you out to the crime scenes in the Preserve in the morning," Stilinski promised. With a wry smile, he added, "Maybe if we go out there with good intentions, something good will happen to us."

~~~

Officer Washington's recommendation of Casa Pollo having proved accurate – Emily fully intended to take a chill box full of their tamales back to Quantico and her freezer – the team tried the diner for breakfast. Pleasantly full, with go-cups of coffee and a box of cinnamon rolls that defied resistance, they reconvened at the police station.

Garcia provided them with a new data point courtesy of a series of deep searches she'd set up to run over night.

"She was clever, but not as clever as Penelope Garcia," she declared as she made all their phones ding with the emailed information.

"What have you found?" Hotch asked.

Stilinski and several of his deputies hovered in the doorway to the break room. The Sheriff looked bleary with lack of sleep, but engaged, and his uniform was fresh and pressed. The deputies were all, except one gray-haired older man, in their late twenties to late thirties, fit and surprisingly racially and sexually integrated. Stilinski must have made a clean sweep of the old guard when he was elected. Emily had skimmed the office's organizational chart. BCSD Office employed nine female deputies out of forty-five total, a not too shabby twenty percent, with one of them, Chief Deputy Tara Graeme, official Undersheriff.

Forty-five officers to police and protect a population of eight thousand nine hundred twenty-one as of the last census, scattered over six thousand seven hundred thirty-six square miles. None of Beacon County's towns were even incorporated outside Hill Valley and the county seat itself. All contracted with the Sheriff's department to handle their law enforcement. One ambulance service struggled to cover the county, along with CalFire in the cases of the hamlets that didn't even boast a volunteer fire department.

Emily thought Rossi might break out in hives.

"Garcia, anything new?" Hotch asked. He greeted the Sheriff and took a stance next to him, body language and position communicating support and equality. Emily had grown up in diplomatic circles, her mother was an ambassador, and she'd never seen anyone any better than Aaron Hotchner at these subtle exchanges.

"You know it, boss man whom I'm not supposed to call honey," Garcia said cheerfully as she handed each of them files full of reports and photographs ready to be taped to the three large whiteboards that had been brought in overnight. "Nurse Webb was not who she said she was. She wasn't Nurse Webb at all and, in fact, wasn't a registered or licensed nurse of any variety."

"Baby girl," Morgan said, "I know you and I know you have more. Who was she?"

"You do know me so well, my chocolate Adonis." Garcia fluttered her lashes and blew Morgan an exaggerated kiss. One of the deputies choked quietly.

"She tried to cover her trail, but my babies and I have sussed it out. Jennifer Webb was really Jennifer Blake." She held up one finger, the nail coated in deep pink polish. "Before she was Jennifer Blake she was Julia Baccari. Three years ago, she legally changed her name to Jennifer Blake. In case you were wondering, Julia Baccari wasn't a nurse either. She was a doctor until she was attacked by a mountain lion five years ago. She was found, wounded, starving, feverish with infection and hallucinating, in Nevada County. It was a miracle she survived."

Garcia taped three of the pictures up next to Jennifer Webb's ID photo. The first showed a delicately beautiful woman with brown eyes and wavy brown hair. The second was ghastly in contrast: brutal gashes ripped horizontally and diagonally over most of her face, mutilating her nose and mouth. The wounds had been cleaned and stitched closed but stood out swollen and red against the sunken pallor of her skin. Part of her upper lip on one side was gone. The third photo showed her with ropy scars and sunken divots in place of the stitched gashes. Subtle differences in her bone structure were closer to 'Nurse Webb' than Julia Baccari.

"The damage to her face took two years of reconstructive surgery to repair to the point she could conceal it enough to function in public," Garcia said.

That explained Webb's pancake makeup that made her look twenty years older than she was along with her choice to work nightshift at the long-term care, where the patients wouldn't be aware enough to notice anything more, and no one would ask uncomfortable questions.

"Poor thing," JJ commented.

"No kidding," Garcia agreed. "She lost her job, her insurance, her apartment, her girlfriend and any friends she had. No family. She was out on the street with hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills and a face that made people cringe. She went through bankruptcy, changed her name and then dropped off the grid completely."

"Somewhere she had more work done. A lot of it," Emily said. "Why didn't the autopsy find the scarring?"

"It did, but the pathologist thought it looked like she'd gone face first through a windshield at some point," Reid spoke up. Of course, he'd read through all the victim files last night. "Same with the torso scarring… " He blinked rapidly and said, "The wound pattern is almost the same as the one our unsub leaves. Four blades in parallel, a fifth spiked at an angle."

"Baccari was attacked by a mountain lion," Rossi said.

"You might be interested in the report the ranger who found her filed," Garcia told him. "Apparently, she kept mumbling something. He thought it was 'he killed them' or maybe 'she'. They were ready to search for other victims before it was identified as an animal attack. Baccari wasn't in any shape to contradict that for weeks."

"Find out where she was between the name change and showing up here," Hotch ordered quietly. He was frowning.

"If she was broke, where did she get the money for extensive cosmetic surgery?" Morgan asked. "And if she changed her name to start over, why change it again and work as a nurse instead a doctor? That doesn't add up."

"What if she wasn't attacked by a mountain lion?" Emily asked. She glanced around at the others. "I've read through the coroner reports of the unsub's victims. They're using an unknown weapon, something unique that may have been hand crafted by the unsub. The wounds it leaves look a lot like claw marks."

"Excuse me," one of the deputies interrupted. "Did you just say 'they'?"

"English lacks an epicene singular pronoun," Reid said. "But they/them/their has a history of singular third person usage dating back to Shakespeare and the Fourteenth century. Examples of such usage exist in the works of Jane Austen and even W.H. Auden. Prescriptivists dislike it, but such usage is increasingly accepted to conform to social needs for a polite gender-neutral form. Agent Prentiss is trying to avoid unconsciously influencing our potential profile. Although – "

Hotch coughed and Reid winced and fell silent. Graeme looked over at the Sheriff and smirked. "Guess we know now that going to Quantico won't squash Stiles," she commented.

"Just for that, I'm eating a cinnamon roll and telling him you bought it for me," the Sheriff replied. He looked rueful. "Sorry, Agent – Doctor – Reid. My son has expressed some interest in following me into law enforcement after college. The FBI is one of the possibilities. He can be a font of information. Sometimes it takes the rest of us a while to figure out how it connects. I worry he'll have a hard time fitting in."

"Want us to discourage him?" Morgan asked. He was testing Stilinski. "Or offer some advice?"

The Sheriff shook his head. "Neither. God knows he's given me and the rest of the town enough gray hairs already, but he'll do whatever he decides to do."

Emily found herself looking forward to meeting this kid. If he was anything like Reid…

She set that speculation aside for something related to the case. "Julia Baccari's wounds look too much like our unsub's targets here and now."

"Well, yeah," a younger deputy said, "isn't she one of them?"

"Yes, but we'd considered her a collateral casualty," Rossi explained. "She was the night nurse at the facility caring for Peter Hale. Her throat was cut; she didn't suffer any wounds to her torso, she wasn't tortured, and she wasn't burned, literally or metaphorically. She seemed to have just been in the unsub's way."

The Sheriff nodded in agreement. "That's what it looked like, but if she wasn't who she said she was, she may have more involvement than we thought. Damn it."

"Her fake identity is good enough to hold up to most background checks," Garcia told him. "Why would you think she wasn't who she seemed to be?"

"Because it's an assumption," Stilinski replied, again with the rueful smile. "I should know better." He glanced at his deputies. "Are you listening? Never take anyone at face value, perp or victim. It'll turn around and bite you in the ass."

The deputies replied with a chorus of chuckles and yessirs.

"So now we have to look for a connection between Julia Baccari and any of our victims," Hotch explained. "She may have been the unsub's initial victim, someone they had to or were compelled to kill, or she may have been a victim of opportunity."

"While she survived the attack on her, it's clear the unsub didn't mean to spare her," Reid added. "It's difficult to judge from the photographs – Garcia, I need wound measurements – but I think the weapon used in her attack was smaller than the one the unsub is using now."

Garcia seated herself at her temporary computer command center and began typing. She'd have something for them, probably in minutes. Emily wondered how many people appreciated Garcia's real brilliance went beyond the techniques of computer information gathering and analysis. Garcia's talent lay in thinking of how to pose the right question to elicit useful information. No other analyst at the Bureau – and they employed some of the best in country – matched Garcia's ability to find the information that no one else guessed existed. Reid could integrate data, but Garcia supplied it. Despite her playful self-aggrandizement, she had no real idea how extraordinary she was.

That in addition to being one of the few genuinely, truly _good_ people Emily had ever known. Penelope Garcia was fierce in defense of those she deemed her family, but she could never be unkind. When the job made Emily hate humanity, she hung out with Garcia and could not help feeling better.

Morgan curled his fingers and made a swiping motion upward. "I wonder if it's some kind of glove?"

"Or gauntlet," Rossi agreed. "That movement would match the wound pattern. Any kind of animal, the claw marks would drag down the torso of an upright human being, even a chimp or other large primate."

"Measurements are on your tablet, Genius Boy," Garcia said.

"Actually, the weapon may resemble the _bagh nakh_ of Marathi India," Reid said as he read through the data on his tablet. "It means 'tiger claw' and is designed to either fit over the knuckles or be concealed under the palm. The number of 'claws' can vary, usually three to five. The curved blades supposedly mimic a big cat's. Like a tiger's claws, they rip through skin and muscle."

"Thank you, Encyclopedia Brown," Morgan said.

Reid ignored him. "The Maratha emperor Shivaji used a _bagh nakh_ to kill Afzal Khan during the Moghul rule. Nihang Sikhs would wear them in their turbans."

Garcia paused in her typing. "Oh, wow, those are mean. Take a look."

Everyone joined Morgan in looking over Garcia's shoulder at one of the monitors, which displayed several variants of the _bagh nakh_. The weapons were iron or steel, with several curved 'claw' blades spaced along a bar with rings meant for thumb and pinky at the ends. They could be slapped at someone or the threaded between the fingers of a closed fist and punched into flesh.

"According to one account, the rajahs enjoyed watching a form of 'claw-wrestling' – _naki ka kusti_ – in which fighters hyped up on _bhang_ or hemp used a form of them fastened to their fists," Reid said clinically. "They quote 'tore like tigers at face and body… necks and ribs were laid open'. The fighters regularly bled to death."

"No one used them to punch right into someone's gut and tear them upward, though," Stilinski commented. He was frowning at the images on the computer screen. "This guy – person - penetrated through the muscle layers."

Garcia's hands still danced over her keyboard, eliciting screen after cascading screen of new information. Emily couldn't come close to keeping up.

"The unsub has remarkable strength," Emily observed.

"But judging from angle and placement of the initial wounds in conjunction with the victims' heights, they are unlikely to be more than six feet tall," Reid added. "Factoring in the variables induced by whether the unsub or the victims or both were standing straight or not."

"A tall, extraordinarily strong woman or an average to tall male, also abnormally strong. Our unsub may look like a body builder, but not a basketball or football player," Morgan concluded.

"The wound pattern Julia Baccari suffered is almost identical to the victims here," Reid declared. "Same number of blades, but the total width and the space between them is smaller, as though to fit a smaller hand. Also, the wounds didn't penetrate the abdominal wall. The slashes to Julia Baccari's face were wild and uncoordinated. It might have been the first time the unsub used the weapon. If it was a bad fit, that might explain why the attack failed to kill her."

"The unsub worked out, got stronger, figured out that they needed to do more than just slash their victims up to be sure of kill," Morgan theorized. "Let their rage grow. Studied their victims. Fantasized. Planned their attacks and rehearsed them in their head over and over. Perfected their weapon."

"It's possible the unsub didn't consciously intend to act out their fantasy of killing, that the planning and daydreaming of it was enough up until something triggered them," Rossi added. "They experienced a new stressor or a repeat of the one that pushed them to attack Baccari. Something traumatic. Something they blamed their victims for them experiencing."

"Are you saying the killer is after revenge?" Tara Graeme asked.

"Very likely," Rossi answered. "Whether you or I would deem whatever they did a crime or something to rate revenge is another story entirely. This unsub is deranged, to put it simply. We don't experience reality in the same fashion they do."

Stilinski sighed after that. "Well, it's not nothing. Are you ready to head out to the Preserve?"

"We are," Hotch said. "Prentiss, Morgan, you're with me and the Sheriff. JJ, can you coordinate with the public information officer here to prepare an announcement if the press starts asking questions?"

"You mean when," one of the deputies muttered. "Maggots."

Ow. Someone had been burned by the media, Emily thought.

"I'll have something prepared within an hour," JJ promised.

"Dave, I'd like you and Reid to re-interview the five high school students. They're all minors, so we need parental permission." Hotch paused and looked at the Sheriff. Emily remembered, one of the witnesses was the Sheriff's son. "JJ can help with that. Try to convince them to let us talk to them without the parents' present in the room."

"If you want a cognitive interview, Emily might have more success than me or Reid," Rossi said.

"Don't tell me you're scared of a couple high school kids, Dave." Hotch's expression didn't shift, but the hint of a tease in his voice was there if you knew him.

"Just proves he's smart," Stilinski said. "As a matter of record, you have my permission to grill my son like a cheese sandwich." His eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Though you may find yourself the subject of his interrogation. Just warning you."

"Thank you, Sheriff. Dave, if you think one of them would respond better to a female agent, bring JJ in."

"Tara can sit in with the girls," Stilinski suggested. "Everyone knows they can trust her, and she won't interfere with your process." He nodded to Graeme.

"If Melissa has any doubts, tell her I can either sit in or monitor Scott's interview. Natalie Martin will agree to anything if you ask after she starts drinking for the day and Jeff's not interested enough to object. David Whittemore will insist on Jackson having their lawyer present – he's senior partner at Whittemore & Wiley. A pillar of the community." The Sheriff wasn't going to bad mouth anyone, but Emily predicted Whittemore would be an ass.

"The Argents haven't been around long enough for me to guess how they'll handle it," Stilinski finished. "Chris Argent struck me as protective of his daughter. Same with his wife. But he just opened a gun range along with a sporting goods business here. I think he'll want to stay on our good side."

"All right, that will help," Rossi said.

"And me, sir?" Garcia asked.

"Keep working on the victimology. Look for links between the other victims and Julia Baccari or her aliases. Good work finding that information."

"Yes sir. If there's something to find, I will find it!"

Emily and Morgan both checked their service weapons, before picking up their jackets with FBI on the backs. She'd dressed in her heaviest pants, a thick turtleneck, and her combat boots, anticipating Hotch would have her tromping around the woods. She had gloves and a hat in her pockets, her cell phone, along with the various gear she always carried as an agent (evidence bags, nitrile gloves, zip ties, matches, flashlight, knife, credentials in her pocket).

Morgan, as usual, had to be tough and act like he was immune to the cold. Northern California wasn't Alaska in winter, but Emily wasn't sharing her hand warmers with him if they ended up cold and freezing somewhere.

She'd share with Hotch, though she knew he'd never ask and suspected he wouldn't need. It was always a surprise to see him out of his conservative dark suits and ties with the white button-down shirts, but he'd adapted in expectation of their outing. She'd bet some of it was his old SWAT gear: the black boots and fatigue pants, at least. He had a white button-down under a heavy black pullover though, and a green-ish-black peacoat. A watch cap peeked from one pocket.

"Ready?" Stilinski asked.

"We'll follow you," Hotch confirmed.

The Sheriff led them down Main Street and out of town. Following the two-lane state highway that was no wider than the county road, they turned onto the latter and drove up it for another twelve miles before reaching a look-out pull-off. All of Beacon Hills was visible below them. Across the road from the pull-off, a sign identified the Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve, next to a Powder River gate. A shiny new chain and padlock locked it closed along with yellow crime scene tape. No Trespassing and Private Property signs were screwed to the gate, rusted and pocked with dimpled holes. Emily guessed they were from .22s.

Stilinski had parked his department vehicle and walked across to unlock the gate.

"Edges of the bullet holes are rusted," Morgan noted.

"Country kids with hunting rifles," Hotch said. "Road signs make easy targets. If they're hunting, they may be particularly drawn to defacing No Hunting and No Trespassing signs." He pulled the SUV through the opening once the Sheriff had moved his own vehicle through, then waited as he locked the gate behind them.

Stilinski tapped on the driver's window. Hotch lowered the window.

"This is a fire access road. It's another six miles, all of it climbing up or down. Take it slow. There're ruts that'll high center you if you don't angle your vehicle going over them. We had some rain last week. Not enough to take care of the fire danger, but it could have loosened up the hillsides in a couple places. I'll have to stop if any rocks came down since the last time anyone drove through."

"I thought these crime scenes were at a camp site and a jogging path," Morgan said.

"They are, but you can't get a vehicle in that way. Plus, all the tromping in and out to the camp site scene did for the footpath bridge hikers used. Footings rotted out. No one's kept anything up out here since the Hale fire. We were lucky no one got hurt." Stilinski straightened and slapped the roof of the SUV's cab before ambling back to his own.

Hotch followed Stilinski's advice, driving slow and carefully. The SUV had decent clearance, but Emily still heard rocks scraping against the oil pan or possibly the gas tank.

"Jesus," Morgan muttered. "If you tried to drive through here fast, you'd rip out your transmission. Give me a city any time."

Emily laughed at him. "You and Rossi. City boys."

"Like you aren't a city girl."

"I don't deny it. Remember those potholes in Gary, though?"

Morgan laughed with her. "Those weren't potholes," he said, "those were – "

"Sinkholes!" Emily chorused with him.

"Considering the difficulty of getting to these sites with a car or truck," Hotch said, "I think it is likely the unsub arrived and left on foot."

"We already knew the unsub is physically fit."

"In addition, the unsub is comfortable in the wilderness," Emily extrapolated from Hotch's observation. "The attack on Baccari occurred when she was hiking too."

"Comfortable but not preferential," Morgan said. "He didn't hesitate to kill Baumann right in the middle of town and Myers at the high school. He took Baccari and Peter Hale out of the care home. Probably at night, but there were staff there besides Baccari. It's across the street from the hospital. People in and out all the time, parking spillover."

"Reid can do a geographical profile."

"Should we have him factor in Baccari or not?" Emily asked.

"Are you telling me you don't think Reid will do both?" Morgan answered.

"That parking lot," Emily said. "Didn't it border on forest? Doesn't the high school butt up against woods too?"

"If not actual forest, certainly undeveloped land with timber cover," Hotch confirmed. "You're right."

"The unsub's approaching and retreating on foot."

"And is very familiar with Beacon Hills. He knows the Preserve. He knows how to get around the town without being seen. He doesn't need a car or roads," Morgan finished. "He's a local or at least has been here long enough to have learned the ins-and-outs of the area."

"The only thing this unsub brings to the kills is the weapon. If they get blood on themselves, they doesn't care, no one's going to see."

The Sheriff's Department SUV ahead of them braked. Hotch parked behind it. They'd reached the first crime scene, where Unger and Reddick had been killed.

~~~

Dave conceded to himself that Sheriff Stilinski had pegged all the parents and that having signed forms giving them permission to interview their kids before they rolled up to the local high school proved helpful.

Possibly the word he wanted was satisfying.

Acting Principal Argent had the eyes of a shark, flat, predatory, and emotionless. He strode out of his office to greet them, assuring them he wanted to do everything he could to help the Bureau, insulted Reid and JJ – with a side of sexual evaluation – and did his best to throw whatever roadblocks in their way he could.

Slapping the signed permission forms in front of him and asking the secretary at the desk behind him which classroom the kids were in infuriated Argent and Dave couldn't help enjoying it.

"Stilinski, McCall, Martin, Whittemore and Miss Argent are all in AP Chemistry, Room 407, with Mr. Harris," the secretary told them without hesitation.

"I'm responsible for these students," Argent insisted. "Particularly my granddaughter."

"Interesting," Reid commented. "You haven't been here long. Everything filed with the state lists Mr. Thomas as the principal here as of the start of school year."

"It's an interim appointment. Mr. Thomas unfortunately needed to take some time off," Argent dismissed. A series of micro-expressions gave away pleasure and pride. Incongruous with his words, but Dave would bet far more truthful.

They reached the classroom before Reid could poke at Argent any more.

They could hear the teacher inside before Dave opened the door. "Another interruption, Stilinski. You must enjoy detention. I'm happy to give you it again. Maybe this time that killer your father can't catch will finish the job."

A girl's voice interrupted. "If he hadn't spoken up, Greenberg would have burned himself."

"Detention for you too, Ms. Martin."

Dave opened the door. The teacher scowled at Dave and Reid before recognizing Argent.

"Sorry to interrupt," Argent said without even pretending he was. "These gentlemen are with the FBI and insist on speaking with several of our students." He ignored JJ's presence.

"SSA Rossi," Dave identified himself. "My colleagues, Agents Jennifer Jareau and Dr. Reid."

"I'm teaching a class. You can talk to them after."

"It sounded more like you were threatening a student," Reid observed. He looked at Argent. "Didn't you just say you were responsible for your students here, Principal Argent? You have two witnesses to a teacher verbally threatening a student in an abusive fashion then punishing another student for speaking up in his defense."

Argent looked like he would rather swallow a live toad as he spoke. "Mr. Harris. I'm afraid Agent Reid is correct. I'll have to get someone in to finish the class. This is a serious matter. Especially in conjunction with the questions Mr. Whittemore has raised in regard to the students' safety in the school while serving their detention under your supervision."

"You can't – "

However Argent felt about Harris' behavior – which hadn't seemed to surprise him – he responded to Harris' protest of his authority aggressively. "I certainly can. If you do not remove yourself from the classroom and the high school grounds, I will call on security to do so."

One boy with dark, tousled hair, lightly punched another's one's arm.

"Ow, dude!" the second one, caught in that gawky, lanky teenage stage between a child's body and a man's, angular features just beginning to emerge from baby-fat, whispered. His buzzcut hair did him no favors, neither did the yellow-and-orange plaid flannel over-shirt that hung on him like a tent. When he finished growing into himself, he'd be handsome. He had big, light brown eyes. For the moment though, he was an awkward mess.

Dave recognized him as Sheriff's Stilinski's son with the unpronounceable Polish first name.

"Dude, I told you we should report him," his friend insisted.

"Not when it was just my word," Stiles Stilinski replied. "My dad doesn't need the trouble."

Dave tucked that tidbit away. Harris' behavior wasn't new, and Stiles would keep things from his father to protect him.

When Harris stumbled out, practically quivering with fury, Dave smiled at him and didn't move out of the way, forcing him to detour around him to reach the door. It was petty. Dave enjoyed it even while he knew better than to let himself do anything more active or it would be too easy to slip down the same wrong track Harris had.

"Misses Argent and Martin, Misters McCall, Stilinski and Whittemore," Dave said. "As your principal said, we're with Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. We need to interview all of you."

"Settle down," Argent snapped at the rest of the class as they began whispering to each other, some excited and others pretending to be bored by it all. One or two appeared genuinely uninterested.

JJ shepherded them to the library, where they could sit down undisturbed and use a small attached conference room for the interviews. The three of them had discussed and agreed that the kids were more likely to relax in the familiar surroundings of the school than if they were brought into the police station. Garcia had sent them a laptop with a camera to video record the interviews. They would use their cell phones for a back-up transcript and stream directly to the Bureau's secured servers.

The Whittemore boy started complaining about missing lacrosse practice when he realized they were going to question him about the video store incident and the one at the high school. His girlfriend, the redhead with the calculating eyes, tapped his wrist and he shut up. She smiled sweetly at them. "Maybe you could interview Jackson first?" she suggested.

Lydia Martin. She didn't look like someone who tested in the same realms Reid did. She didn't look like she'd been in the hospital after another attack recently either. She dressed like a model from _Teen Vogue._ She also had the social engineering savvy to have taken over as queen bee though she was only a sophomore. Or so JJ said after reading through her file and the guidance counsellor's notes.

"Hey, Stiles and I will end up missing practice too," McCall whined.

"I don't actually care," Stiles said with a shrug. "Besides, I think they got me out of detention."

"Today's a bad day, Stilinski," Whittemore snapped.

"Oh, right, right, it's – " Stilinski blurted. He looked at Dave and Reid and JJ and visibly stopped himself. "Coach's time of the month."

The screech of a wheel made Whittemore whip his head around and stare at the librarian pushing a cart full of books. McCall jerked out of his seat. The others flinched – in Stilinski's case flailed – and Allison Argent's hand moved reflexively toward her purse.

PTSD from the attack? They were hiding it, but they were all running on nerves. Not like what they'd experienced was over. It wasn't, the unsub was still out there, but it shouldn't spook them this much unless they knew more than they were saying.

"Miss Argent?" Dave asked the dark-haired girl. She was just a girl, even if she was a year older than the rest of the group. Lovely and self-possessed, but still, these days he saw everyone under thirty as kids. And under her pretty smile, she was drawn taut as a bowstring.

She smiled at him. "I'm fine with waiting so the boys can get out of here first and get to practice."

"Stiles will give us a ride afterward," McCall assured her earnestly.

"Of course, Stiles will," Stiles muttered. "That's what Stiles is for."

They took the Whittemore boy in first. Under other circumstances they would have kept the others separate while they waited, but they'd all had plenty of time to coordinate stories. Not to mention contaminate each other's memories and generally block or rationalize details that didn't fit the scenario that fit their expectations best.

Dave didn't have a lot of hope they'd glean anything new unless the kids were more than witnesses and bystanders.

~~~

Jackson Whittemore didn't offer them any new insights into Paul Baumann's death. He'd been on a date with Lydia Martin, they'd stopped to rent _The Notebook_ (for the tenth time). The open sign was lit, the lights were on and the door was unlocked. He'd gone inside while Lydia waited with the car running. He'd grabbed the DVD case and walked to the check-out. When he found no one there he'd waited a few minutes, become impatient and headed to the back room.

"She likes to be seen in the Porsche; she doesn't like to wait."

Jackson flicked his gaze to the clock over the doorway. He began drumming the fingers of one hand on his thigh.

"I figured the loser that worked there was sneaking a cigarette break," he said. "Or screwing his girlfriend. So I walked in. Either I could get him to give me a discount to stay quiet or I'd catch them going at it and have a good story and maybe some video."

Instead, he'd had one instant of seeing Baumann on the floor, blood pooling under him, and then a blow to the head knocked him out. He woke up in the ambulance.

"Think back," Reid suggested. "Close your eyes. You're at the check-out. Did you hear anything?"

Jackson scowled but complied. "Just the shitty movie on the TV. Some B-horror thing." His mouth curled into a smirk. " _Laurel and Hardy Meet the Wolfman_." Something about that amused him.

"Anything else? Anything that made you think there was someone else in the store?"

"No. Why would I care? There's supposed to be people in the store. The idiot is supposed to be there to take my money. That's why he's pulling those minimum wage bucks," Jackson answered scornfully.

"You didn't think anything was wrong?"

"Because I'd get involved if I knew there was a murderer in the back room? Please. I just wanted to rent the DVD and get out of there. Lydia's mom was in Sonoma on some retreat. I could stay the night."

Another flickering glance at the clock, then the window. The kid wasn't that worried about lacrosse practice. Goose pimples rose on his arms, before he shrugged and assumed a faux slouch.

"And watch _The Notebook_ for tenth time?" Dave asked.

Jackson shrugged. "I hate that movie. I offered to buy her a copy. We could stream it. No. We've got to rent it. We've got to be seen out on a date. It's just Lydia proving she can jerk me around. Her old man's screwing some girl only three years older than her. It's fucked her up." Which was more insight than Dave had expected from him.

His account of the attack at the high school was straight forward as well. It was clear that Adrian Harris hadn't bothered to supervise the students serving detention. They'd fled from the study hall to the chemistry lab looking for him and barricaded the door with desks. The teacher didn't reappear until the police arrived.

"Harris?" Jackson sneered. "He was hiding somewhere. He's pathetic. Gets his jollies making some student's life hell every year. He's really got it in for Stilinski. I don't like Dumb or Dumber, but everyone knows Hair Ass got picked up for a DUI and is taking it out on them." He shrugged. "He wants to make Stilinski lose it, so he can fuck up his chances at a scholarship."

The only interesting part came when Jackson pointed out, "I heard McCall said he saw Derek Hale. He's just trying to impress Allison. Stinky Stilinski's so desperate to hold onto be his bestie now McCall has some cred with the hot girlfriend and playing first line, he'll back up whatever crap McCall spouts. The lights were out, no one could see shit. Allison had a flashlight. None of us had our phones – Harris confiscated them for detention. I call bullshit."

"We'll ask him about that," Dave said.

Jackson snorted contemptuously. "You'll buy into the Nice Guy act the way everyone does."

~~~

The camp site was nothing more than a large, flat, bare area with two old logs dragged in to act as seating and a sloppy circle of stones cemented into a fire circle near a nearby trickle of a spring for water. Hotch imagined the night view of the sky, so far up and far from any urban light pollution would be spectacular.

He had grown up in the South. As a boy, he'd gone hunting a few times. He could recognize a deer path. The hiking trail that someone on foot would take had clearly started as one.

The fire circle's stones were still soot stained, but even the ashes were gone, leaving only blackened earth.

The Sheriff pointed to one of the logs. "The two of them were sharing the bottle there. They had one of those blue plastic tarps you can pick up anywhere and a dirty sleeping bag. Unger had a backpack. Nothing in it but a change of dirty clothes, three lighters, and a bunch of newspaper clippings."

"You have those?" Hotch asked.

A man who had a little as Unger did, those clippings would have been important. They meant something to him.

"Yeah, it's all in evidence."

"Did you look at them?" Emily asked.

Morgan was walking around, stopping to look at the fire circle and the logs, no doubt picturing how the scene had looked at night. What the unsub had seen as he approached.

"No. I think it was Haigh who collected everything." The Sheriff paused. "Damn it. That idiot Haigh. It never occurred to him to pay attention and I missed the significance. You need to see those clippings."

"Unger had a record of setting fires," Emily said. "He may have kept newspaper articles on them."

The clippings might point them to fires Unger had a part in that no one had ever connected to him.

"Hotch," Morgan said while walking over to them. "I think the unsub came down the trail. With a fire going, their night vision would have been for shit, but they'd have seen him coming from the south if they were sitting with their backs to either log."

Morgan was right. The site wasn't perfectly flat; it sloped toward the south and the trail. The fire circle had been built where the ground was drier and sheltered from the wind. Anyone at the fire would have a clear view of someone coming up the trail.

"Sheriff, where does the trail go from here?" Hotch asked.

"Up to an old fire look-out where the Preserve land ends and then around the mountain. There's another access road – dirt – that goes down to Hill Valley. It comes back around to the Hale house. After that you're on a private road that was basically their driveway."

The Hales again. Maybe it was inevitable to find links when two of them were dead and two more murders had occurred in the Preserve. But Hotch had a hunch more than the hiking trail circled round to them. They needed to talk to Derek Hale.

A hawk turned and turned, high in the pale blue sky, its distinct _scree_ drifting on the wind the moved the pines. The air smelled of pine and mulch and a hint of wood smoke.

"How many people know about that?"

"The Hales, Forest Service, CalFire, Sheriff's Department, deer hunters, hikers. It's not exactly a secret. You can probably see it on Google Earth."

Hotch suspected it wasn't so widely known, though. Not many people would hike beyond the camp site. He could see why the Sheriff had brought them in through the fire access road. He looked back to the way they'd come in. "Were there any signs of someone on the access road?"

"No. Had to get the Forest Service in with a chain saw to take out a log so the coroner's van could get in here."

The hawk _screed_ again, dodging another bird, annoyed.

Morgan walked back to the trees, then sprinted for the log where Reddick and Unger had been set up. He vaulted the log and skidded, nearly reaching the fire circle before he could turn. Dirt and a few pine needles flew into the air from the force of his boots. "Yeah," he said, "I don't think it was a bull rush. The unsub must have crept up on them. The fire was crackling, they're half in the bag, running their mouths… He doesn't even have to be particularly stealthy."

The Sheriff followed Morgan's path at a walk. "I agree. Unger took an impact to the rear of his head here." He crouched and showed Morgan a spot on the log. "We found some of his hairs and blood here."

"The unsub grabbed him by the hair at the top of his head and slammed him back against the log hard enough to stun or knock him out," Morgan theorized. He mimicked the movements.

"That left him with just Reddick to deal with." Hotch left it at that so Emily and Morgan would keep going.

"Reddick's drunk and shocked; the unsub is fast, focused. He doesn't even use his weapon yet."

"He threw Reddick around, beat the hell out of him," the Sheriff said. "Not much sign left now, but at the time, you could see the scuffle marks in the dirt."

"Reddick was over six feet," Morgan pointed out. "It takes a lot of strength to throw someone that big, unless you're a martial arts expert."

"Reddick had broken ribs, a broken wrist, a fractured cheek bone and a shattered knee cap," Emily recited. "The unsub cut him up after incapacitating him."

"He didn't waste time beating up Unger," Morgan said. "That isn't the important part of his pattern."

"He cut the tendons on Unger's knees so he couldn't run." Emily indicated the earth where the tarp had rested. "That's the two blood stains here and on the tarp. He left Unger sitting up after he came around, maybe even woke him up, so he had to watch what he did to Reddick."

"So he'd know what the unsub was going to do to him next."

"He's sadistic," the Sheriff said. "He likes putting on a show? Is that why the bodies are left where someone will find them so easily?"

"There's two different patterns," Emily said. "He moved Laura and Peter Hale. We don't have a crime scene for either of them, just the dump sites. Everyone else, the unsub just leaves where he killed them."

It occurred to Hotch then. "Not dump sites. The unsub had to be sure each of the Hales was found. It was important enough to re-locate them, to the jogging trail and the parking lot."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right, Hotch," Morgan agreed. "He cuts them in two. He doesn't bother with that with the rest. They have to die, but after that he doesn't care about them."

"What the fuck could Laura or Peter Hale have done that made someone chop them in two?" the Sheriff wondered. "He was catatonic the last six years. She was seventeen the last time she was here."

"The initiating event could have taken place years before," Hotch told him.

"Well that makes everything easier."

"If it was easy, they wouldn't pay us the big bucks," Hotch replied just as sarcastically.

Stilinski laughed ruefully. "I know Beacon County has a reputation for being weird and spooky, but things have been quiet for a long time. We had the fire and that was it. Run of the mill domestics, robberies, drunk drivers and loose dogs chasing someone's goats."

"How'd that go?" Hotch asked.

"Dog ended up at the vet. Those goats are mean. Had to break up a fist fight when the dog owner tried to make the guy with goats pay his bill."

"Ouch," Morgan commented.

Stilinski looked at the fire circle. "This guy shoved their heads in the fire when he was done. Face down. I hadn't smelled anything like that years."

"Desert Storm?" Morgan asked.

"Car pile-up back when I was still a deputy. Gas tank cooked off, driver was pinned inside." He rolled his shoulders. "Iraq sucked too, but you kind of expected it."

"I see what you mean."

Stilinski looked around like he could still see the bodies. "This, you don't expect. It's not right. Not here."

"Not anywhere, man," Morgan told him.

~~~

Scott McCall had a certain… gormless quality. JJ knew she was being unfair. She also suspected he wasn't as oblivious as he projected. Playing stupid was something many kids did to keep adults from asking more from them than they wanted to give.

"Hi," she said as she sat down opposite him. She'd driven over to the high school since she didn't have any media duties left to work on. The murders weren't even in the papers. She'd swear there was a media blackout if she hadn't known better. It was bizarre. No one wanted to pay attention to this town. Nothing distinguished Beacon Hills on the face of it.

Given his absent father, she and Dave and Reid speculated that he might have authority problems with men. They decided she'd take lead, with Reid chiming in, but Dave would downplay his presence. "Can I call you Scott? I'm JJ. Jennifer Jareau."

"Hi," he replied with an easy smile. "Yeah, go ahead."

"I'll get you out of here in time for practice. I was on the girls' soccer team in high school. We won a championship that got me a scholarship to Pittsburgh, but we had to work hard. I get it's not just playing a game."

"Lacrosse is harder," Scott said without a hint he realized he was insulting her.

Dave coughed. JJ had thought Jackson Whittemore was an arrogant jerk, but maybe he wasn't wrong about Scott McCall.

"Have you been playing long?"

"I didn't make the team last year," he answered petulantly. "I'm first line this year."

"You must have worked very hard over the summer."

He couldn't hold her gaze. "Yeah. Stiles and I practiced some."

He looked out the window. Not at the parking lot, but up toward the eastern horizon. His foot tapped staccato on the floor.

"We'd like to go over what happened the night Mr. Jurasik was killed here at the school."

"I already told the Sheriff and he had me give a statement to one of the deputies. Not Tara."

"We know," JJ said, "but sometimes you remember things later, when the shock has worn off. Sometimes witnesses leave out things they don't realize are important or they don't even realize they know."

"That's what Stiles says. He also says witnesses are 'notoriously unreliable'."

"But not on purpose," JJ agreed easily.

"Maybe you could clear up something that isn't in your statement," Reid suggested. "Why were all of you serving detention?"

"You heard Mr. Harris. He'll use any excuse to ding Stiles. He gave me detention because Stiles is my friend. Allison, I guess for talking to me. Lydia corrected him on something, so he said she needed to learn to respect his position. Jackson called him a douche."

"Mr. Harris' behavior today wasn't new?" JJ asked. She made a note in her tablet. The laptop and their phones were all recording, but she didn't want Scott to think about that.

"I guess." He scraped his foot against the floor. Back and forth, back and forth, and it started his chair squeaking. That stopped him. His gaze strayed to the window again, then his nose wrinkled like he smelled something bad.

"Where do you usually serve detention?"

"Cafeteria when it's Harris. Everyone sits at a different table. He takes our phones and everything else, then tells us to do homework. It's stupid."

"You were in the cafeteria that evening," Reid confirmed.

Scott nodded.

"Was it already dark out?"

"I wasn't paying any attention. I guess. Mostly."

"All right. Where was Mr. Harris?"

"Doing something on his tablet."

"And when the electricity failed?" Reid asked.

"Uh. He told us to stay there and he'd get the custodian. I guess it was mostly dark by then. Everyone was freaked out by how dark it was. Except Allison. She had a flashlight. She's so smart."

JJ suppressed a smile at the dreamy way Scott described Allison. First love was sweet. Carrying a flashlight was smart too, smarter than relying on a cellphone that would go dead far faster. She made a note that Allison had been the one with the only light.

"And did Mr. Harris return?"

"No. We heard noises. It got loud and someone was screaming. Stiles locked the doors. Then someone hit them, and we all ran out the other end of the cafeteria. Jackson wanted to head for the offices and use one of the phones there, but they're on the other end of the school, so we ran for the chem room, 'cause that's where Mr. Harris left our phones."

"Why didn't you lock the other doors and stay in the cafeteria?" Dave asked.

"'Cause he kept hitting the doors," Scott replied sullenly. "He was going to bust through."

"You keep saying 'he'," Reid said. "Did you hear a male voice?"

"Come on, it's a guy, everyone knows it's a guy," Scott answered quickly.

"But nothing was said?"

"No!" Scott yelled. "Just roaring and stuff breaking and Lydia started screaming and wouldn't shut up. Everyone was yelling. I couldn't think 'cause he was –" He looked down, shoulders rolling oddly, and said in a strained voice. "He was killing that guy. The custodian. I knew he was. I thought I was gonna go crazy."

The rest of Scott's story matched Jackson's, with the minor deviations they expected between witnesses. Scott credited actions to 'us' rather than specifically to Stiles or Lydia or Jackson, blamed Jackson for spilling chemicals in the classroom they took refuge in. He insisted the unsub was male.

"He was after Allison. I know it."

"How?" JJ asked gently.

Scott looked shifty. "Well, if he wanted to kill Lydia or Jackson, he'd have done it before and – and Stiles and I were up in the Preserve the night those two guys got killed. He could've killed us instead!"

"But why would this killer want to kill Miss Argent?" Reid insisted. "What could possibly make her a target?"

"She's a – she's amazing. No one would want to kill her."

"You just said the killer wanted to," Dave pointed out swiftly. He'd heard what JJ had: Scott had choked off something and changed what he was going to say. He did know a reason Allison Argent would be the killer's target.

"Not because she's Allison," Scott replied passionately. "No one who knew her would want to hurt her."

He was clearly in the throes of first love and thought Allison was the perfect girl. Then again, he was sixteen; expecting him to grasp that good people could have flaws was unfair. Most teenagers were more cynical than McCall, though. Certainly, in Dave's experience and, God help him, he'd interviewed enough teenage killers to be cynical about teenage innocence.

"You know, everything you've told us, you've never said how you identified Derek Hale as your attacker," Dave said. He'd come away from the wall where he'd been leaning, looking barely engaged with the interview, lackadaisically poking at his phone. "Why did you accuse him?"

"I thought it was him," Scott lied. He was a shit liar. "I mean, I figured he was mad at me and Stiles for telling the Sheriff he buried that woman behind the old house."

"How did you know about that?" Dave pounced. "What were you doing there? How did you find the grave?" Why would you dig it up and not just call the police? He held back on that question. Scott would hear it as an accusation. He wouldn't be entirely wrong.

"It was a grave! It was dug up dirt. And he's a creep. He told us to get off the property." His hands curled into fists and he shoved them down under the table.

Dave watched him breathe hard. Temper, temper. McCall didn't appreciate being questioned or asked to think things out.

"At the grave?"

"No – out in the woods where the – where I lost my inhaler. He found it."

"How do you know?"

"He gave it back to me," Scott answered. Increasingly sullen. They were losing him as a cooperative witness.

"How creepy," JJ said flatly.

"Why did you go to the Hale house when you'd been informed that was trespassing?" Reid asked.

"It was Stiles' idea."

Nice friend, Dave thought to himself, unimpressed. McCall likely pushed responsibility for his decisions off on others regularly. He and young Stilinski were best friends and by now everyone, including them both, had pigeonholed one as the instigator and one as the innocent follower. It was so much more delicious to talk about the Sheriff's son as the troublemaker, McCall would have got a pass so often that now he unconsciously operated on that assumption. Called on his own behavior, he reacted badly.

"Did you actually see Derek Hale at the school or during the attack?" Dave confirmed.

"I guess. I thought it was him."

No, he hadn't. Hale had antagonized McCall and he'd taken the opportunity to screw him. It was the kind of short-sighted behavior they'd seen in other teenagers too but also in young sociopaths not yet versed in considering consequences to themselves. Teenagers didn't consider what they said or did beyond wanting to do it. McCall hadn't thought of how being accused of a murder could lead to Hale's arrest or that if it went wrong the man might be hurt or even killed. Or hadn't cared. It was hard to say; McCall seemed self-centered beyond the norm but not psychopathically. He was past the innocent sweetness of childhood and hadn't yet acquired the empathy and experience of adulthood. He didn't realize that misidentifying an attacker let the real unsub go. Or even that he might face consequences for lying to the police himself.

He shut down after that, answering with maybes, guess so, and don't knows. He was a shit liar, but he knew how to stonewall and avoid answers. Nothing pointed to why he was lying. Lying and hiding.

~~~

"Well, that was… interesting," JJ commented to Reid. Dave was retrieving their next kid. They'd decided on Lydia Martin. She likely knew the least, but anything they could glean from her would be useful when they moved on to Allison Argent and the Sheriff's son.

If the younger Stilinski was half as smart as they'd been led to believe, they'd need every advantage they could gather to get anything from him he didn't want to give up.

"McCall was definitely avoiding giving a real answer on several occasions."

JJ and Reid paused in the conference room doorway and observed as Dave approached the remaining three students.

Stiles was sitting on one of the library tables, swinging his leg and telling Allison something accompanied with wild hand gestures. As soon as he saw Scott come out, he shot up and headed over to him. It was almost painful to see how Scott ignored his friend to arrow straight for Allison. Also telling how she focused on Lydia and ignored Scott. She finally spoke, too low for them to hear, and Scott stumbled back, hurt swiftly losing out to anger on his face.

Stiles hurried to his side.

"Fine," Scott said loudly. "I'll ask Kira out."

"Don't be a dick," Stiles told him.

"Trouble in paradise?" JJ murmured.

Scott glared at Stiles, shot another glare at their way, and stomped away. Lydia rose to her feet gracefully, but patted Allison on her arm as she passed. She said something softly.

"Reid?" JJ asked.

Reid frowned. "I think she said _stay strong_."

Stiles slumped down in a chair opposite Allison and smiled weakly.

~~~

Morgan snagged the front passenger seat in the SUV despite Emily's glare. It was no use trying for the driver's side; Hotch wasn't giving up those keys.

The Sheriff guided them from where Reddick and Unger died down the mountain (no one had said anything about a goddamn mountain, Morgan griped to himself) and back to the highway. They turned right there and up to a lot that serviced the Preserve. At least it seemed to be where people who intended to use the unofficial jogging trail left their vehicles. It was basically packed, bare dirt.

They walked up to where Laura Hale's lower body had been found.

It was a wide spot in the trail less than a mile in. Nothing distinguished it now except the fluttering bits of police tape still strung through the trees.

"Two joggers found her," Stilinski said. "In the center of the trail."

Morgan turned in a circle. "Definitely placed here deliberately."

"What time was she found?" Hotch asked.

"12:42 pm," Stilinski answered promptly. "Two lawyers took a long lunch to train for a marathon."

Hotch checked his watch. "An hour from now. The light would have been the same."

"it was a clear day. As soon as we confirmed the call, I organized a search for the rest of her or where she was killed. There wasn't any blood on the trail."

"Or leading to it?" Morgan asked.

"I sent a pair of deputies all the way up the trail head immediately."

"Why just part of her body?" Morgan wondered. "Why leave the rest of her behind? This unsub didn't kill her randomly. Laura was important. Laura was the beginning."

Emily followed his line of thought. "Julia Baccari was a practice run. The unsub thought she would die, but she survived. That preyed on the unsub's thoughts. He had to be sure she was really dead. No one comes back from being cut in two."

"He made had to be sure," Hotch agreed. "This unsub killed Laura Hale using a set of claws, not a knife, which would be much easier to obtain. He left her body, but Baccari surviving fed his anxiety until he was compelled to return to the scene and make sure."

"If Baccari isn't a coincidence," Morgan pointed out.

"I don't believe in coincidence," Hotch said.

"Once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is a conspiracy," Stilinski recited. He looked apologetic. "I tell my deputies that. But I think you're right, Agent Hotchner. Webb, or Baccari, whoever she was, her history matches too closely to what's going on. She had to be here deliberately."

"The unsub could have taken Peter Hale without killing Baccari too," Emily said. "He's confident and clever. He must have felt like killing her was cleaning up a loose end."

Morgan frowned. It seemed to hang together, but somehow it still felt off. "But he still didn't cut her in two or burn her." They were missing something critical to the profile. He had to hope Garcia would drill deep in the victimology and find it. "Something's still not right. Hotch?"

"I agree. We're missing too much."

"Which way is the Hale house from here?" Emily asked. "How far?"

Stilinski pointed west. "Five or six miles. You think Laura Hale was killed there? We went over the house, the other buildings, and the surroundings after we found the other half of her there. No blood. Some signs she'd been in and out, cleaned up some trash."

"I think the unsub encountered her there and somehow got her further out in the woods."

Emily said, "She knew him."

Hotch said, "She knew him. He could get Laura to come to him, but Peter he had to go get."

"Baccari was waiting for the unsub. She knew he'd come for Peter Hale," Morgan stated.

"She knew who the unsub was."

"She must have wanted revenge," Emily added, touching her fingertips to her own face. "Enough to spend years waiting for him."

Stilinski squinted into the woods. "Maybe she wasn't just waiting. We had a spate of animal killings in early August. Made the news. The way they were carved up looked deliberate to me."

"She got impatient and sent up a flare," Morgan said.

"Suddenly I don't feel as sympathetic to her as I did," Stilinski muttered.

Emily understood. Julia Baccari had very likely triggered the serial killer they were hunting now. She'd died as a result, but that didn't absolve her of the other deaths that followed.

"Three points of contact with the unsub," Morgan declared. "If Garcia can't figure out who it is, I'll grow an afro."

"Oh, God, please don't," Emily said.

~~~

Lydia Martin baffled Reid. Never once had it occurred to him as a child to pretend to be less intelligent than he was. She appeared to have done it since elementary school, successfully playing at a fashion-obsessed popular girl while simultaneously maintaining perfect grades.

He thought JJ or Emily, who were both brilliant and beautiful women, might make a better connection with her, especially Emily, who came from a similar sort of stiflingly privileged family, but she was with Hotch and Morgan, and Lydia presented an ice-cold persona to JJ, and was alternately haughty and seductive toward Rossi.

She leaned forward, real interest betrayed by her posture, when she asked how many degrees Reid had and in what.

"Doesn't the FBI have a minimum age for entrance?"

"Exceptions are sometimes made when the recruit has a set of skills no one else possesses," Rossi said.

"I had a mentor who was in the BAU as well," Reid confessed. He didn't know how he felt about Jason Gideon any longer. In many ways, he'd been the father figure Reid hadn't had since his own father decided he couldn't deal with a schizophrenic wife and a genius child and disappeared on them both. Gideon had also vanished from Reid's life without warning and with little explanation. No one in the BAU had heard from him since he left. It left Reid feeling confused and adrift for a long time.

The losses were like a flood, overwhelming emotions that swamped him, and when they finally subsided, left behind only a dry coating of bitterness.

Garcia could have found Gideon. Gideon had always underestimated her skill set. None of the team were willing to track him down if he didn't want to be found, though. They were afraid of what they'd find, that the job had finally shattered Gideon or, equally alarming, that he had lost sight of the line and slipped into the darkness the way Elle Greenaway had.

No one talked about Elle since she left either. Elle was their nightmare. She'd kept her head down since she left. Maybe that meant she'd stopped at one. Maybe it meant she knew exactly how to stay off law enforcement radar.

There was something brittle about Lydia Martin that reminded Reid of Elle.

It saddened him.

She gave them a pared down description of the events as she'd experienced them, confirming again that Harris had left his charges.

"Honestly, when Scott said someone was dead in the hall, I thought it was him." She examined her nail polish. "He's a subpar teacher and an execrable human being. Mr. Jurasik was a far better person. I'm very sorry he's dead."

"Did you know him?"

"No. I read his name in the news articles. I never even noticed him before, but isn't that the definition of a good custodian? He kept everything running and clean, so no one ever had to think about those things. The girls' bathrooms were always spotless."

"Ah. Most people wouldn't notice or remember his name," Reid commented.

Lydia flipped a long, loose red curl back over her shoulder. "I remember everything I read. Do you?"

"Yes."

"How fast?"

"Twenty thousand words a minute. "

A real smile brought her perfectly made up face alive, boredom finally disappearing. "Stiles will be green with envy."

"Are you and Stiles friends?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. He has a crush on me. I ignore him. It's kinder not to encourage him."

"But you know he'll envy my reading speed."

"I've known him since elementary school," Lydia dismissed. "He's the only one who even realizes I'm not just a fashion diva." The moue on her lips wasn't distaste. More… disappointment. "Not that he has any room to criticize. He's nearly as smart as me but underperforms and blames it on ADHD so he doesn't make McCall look stupider than he is. He can see me, but he can't see himself."

"I think Jackson must see you," JJ said.

"Yes, but intelligence is a detraction from my attractiveness in the Jackson popularity equation." The cold estimate of her place in her boyfriend's affections surprised Reid. "It's imperative to Jackson that he be seen dating the most beautiful, most popular girl in school. It's all social engineering. I can't afford to be seen being friends with Stiles Stilinski. I'll spend the rest of the semester recovering the losses to my standing from the attack at Homecoming as it is."

"I see."

"Do you, Dr. Reid? Three degrees by the time you were twenty-one. I looked you up. At least one of your parents or guardians must have supported your pursuit of advanced education ahead of the 'normal' curve." The contempt in her voice for _normal_ gave away some personal experience with the expectation. "My father wants a pretty, popular daughter. A coin of exchange to marry to some man who will benefit _his_ status or business. Jackson's a satisfactory high school boyfriend; the Whittemores are as close to elite as Beacon Hills offers. He'll pay for college for me of course; the risk/reward ratio that I'll catch someone even better is high enough."

Reid loved his mother, but he'd seldom considered Diana Reid as a better parent than he may have had. Despite her illness, she'd encouraged his intelligence, recognized and enabled him however she was able. She'd loved learning for learning and given him that gift.

Lydia Martin seemed to have never had anyone who was proud of her for her abilities. Natalie Martin was an alcoholic, there was no support from her; instead, like many children of alcoholics, Lydia had become the caretaker who maintained the façade of functionality for her while playing the vapid doll for her father.

"You don't have to do that," JJ said. "I used an athletic scholarship to get out of the town I grew up in."

"I have no intention of doing that. I was interested in Dr. Reid's experiences with accelerated education. I've finished everything I need to graduate high school already, but since I'm still a minor, I'm stuck for now. I considered becoming emancipated, but that would deny me access to my father's money. I have a trust from my grandmother I'll receive on my eighteenth birthday that will allow me to go to MIT in comfort. Meanwhile, I study on my own and use daddy's credit cards hard."

"Good for you," Rossi remarked, so toneless Reid couldn't guess if he meant it or not.

Lydia eyed him warily.

"Maybe we could get back to why we're here. You said Mr. McCall told you the custodian was dead. How did he know? He was in the cafeteria with you, wasn't he?" Rossi asked.

Her eyes widened. She hesitated then said, "No. Scott ran out as soon as Mr. Harris was gone. Stiles took off after him."

That had not been in the statements given at the time. Hard to say whether it had been missed or deliberately omitted. But it turned events on their head.

"How long were they gone?"

Lydia shrugged in false nonchalance. "I didn't look at the clock. Five minutes? Ten? It seemed like forever. Then Stiles dragged Scott back in and Scott said someone killed Mr. Jurasik." She tapped a perfectly manicured finger on the table. "He actually said 'some old guy', not that it was Mr. Jurasik. Scott's not the most observant person."

"I see."

"That's when Stiles locked the doors and started babbling that we had to get out of there. Scott was sort of out of it, in hindsight. But then, he had blood on his shoes, so he might have been in shock. Until I saw that, I thought they were pranking us."

"What about the attack at the Homecoming Dance?"

Lydia pressed her perfectly painted lips together, then described her experience crisply. She had little to no memories of the night she was attacked, but assumed it was the same lunatic who terrorized the high school before. She was lying, but Reid couldn't guess why or for who. Finished, she raised an eyebrow. "Are we done?"

"For now," Rossi said.

"Thank you," Reid added belatedly. JJ just gave her a smile.

Lydia picked up her tiny designer purse and rose to her feet. Reid felt like he towered over her petite height despite the four-inch platforms she had on. She gave him a small nod. "If you think this is some psycho's delusional replay of a bad horror movie, you're missing what's right in front of you."

"And what's that?"

She smiled enigmatically.

"I couldn't tell you. You'll have to find out yourselves."

"And that," Rossi said as the door closed behind her, "is a textbook case of something. Is she really as smart as she told us?"

"I think so," Reid answered.

"You don't know the pressure girls that age experience to conform," JJ said. "To be 'good girls'."

"I don't think Lydia Martin is anything close to a 'good girl' like you were, JJ," Rossi chided.

"My parents loved me," JJ said simply. "Spence's mom loves him. It's a big difference."

"She has empathy," Reid added, "though she takes pains to conceal it."

"Well, just remember, anything that girl told us was carefully curated and presented to send us in the direction she chose."

JJ went to the door and stuck her head out. "Miss Argent?"

~~~

The Sheriff guided them to the Hale house after they left the jogging trail. No one thought they'd find Derek Hale there, he was in the wind and adept at staying off the grid, but there were still insights they could glean.

Arriving up the long drive, the house presented first at the top of a slight rise. After an instant, the illusion of what it once was gave way to reality: broken windows, singed paint, sagging and rotten porch steps, everything gray after six years. The stubborn shell remained, but nature and time were finishing the work of the fire that devastated the Hales.

"Why didn't they get out?" Morgan wondered. Emily found herself thinking the same thing. The porch roof remained. They could have gone out the second-floor windows onto it and escaped. Unless they couldn't get to the second floor.

The drive curved round the house to an old coach house that had been converted into a multi-car garage. From the back they could see the real damage to the house. The fire had gutted everything behind those front walls, taking it down the foundation in most places.

The Sheriff was out of his cruiser, leaning against the hood, arms folded, just looking at the wreckage.

Emily followed Hotch and Morgan over to him. Aside from the converted garage, there had been garden. Everything had grown wild or died from lack of attention in the California drought. A gazebo was falling down on itself at the far end. She saw a garden shed and beyond it, the private cemetery.

Leaving Morgan to take pictures while Hotch and Stilinski talked, she picked her way through the weeds and broken paving stones that once provided a comfortable path. Crime scene tape drooped in fluttering lengths marking where Laura Hale's brother had put half of her in the ground. The hole where she'd been de-interred remained. The dried pile of dirt beside it was sifting away.

She found it terribly sad, imaging Hale shoveling away the earth, probably in the dark, utterly alone, after finding his sister's mutilated remains. He must have done it in the dark, without even the comfort of the warm sun on his shoulders that she felt now.

Maybe he had just wanted to save her the indignity of any further hands on her.

Her eyes followed the line of stones standing among the wild weeds. They were still straight. Only the oldest were weathered beyond easy readability. The graves were in orderly rows with deep blue flowers planted over them. Each had a name, but no epigrams, no dates, nothing else except a triskele carved below each and once or twice a Greek α. No crosses, no angels, no Christian iconography at all. No other religious symbolism she recognized either.

Emily counted spaces from where the last headstone stood. Wilma Howard Hale. Eleven empy plots. Then the hole where Laura had rested. She considered the file she'd read last night.

The men joined her.

"I have to say I don't get it," Stilinski said.

Hotch said, "I'd bet if you asked Hale, he'd still say this is their home."

"He wrapped her in that quilt," Morgan said.

"Yeah, a ratty old quilt."

"Not just any old quilt, man," Morgan said. "A family quilt. Either they had it with them when they left here, or they made it."

Stilinski looked up from the hole. "How do you know that?"

Morgan gestured. "Look at the graves. Each one has a triskele on the stone. That's the pattern on the quilt. That not a common quilt pattern."

"He buried her in the next plot after where the rest of the family should have rested," Emily added. "He wasn't trying to hide her. There's nothing random about this."

The flower rope had taken even more effort. It meant something to Hale or possibly was a family tradition going back generations. It had the feel of ritual to it, even if McCall and the Sheriff's son had disturbed whatever pattern Hale had created.

Stilinski sighed and didn't argue. "And if he'd been the one to kill her, which we know he wasn't, he wouldn't have left half of her on the damn jogging trail. He's screwed up, but after everything he's gone through, what can you expect?"

"He wrapped her in the most comforting shroud he could give her," Hotch said. "He dug deep, a full six feet, to make sure no scavengers disturbed her." He turned to Stilinski.

"Why did your son and McCall come out here anyway?"

"A dare."

"Why call it in anonymously?" Hotch asked.

Stilinski shrugged jerkily. "Idiot teenagers have been coming out here to drink and party since the ashes cooled," he said. "I told Stiles I'd tan his ass if he was one of them."

Emily stooped and plucked one of the blue flowers as they made their way back. The scent wasn't pleasant and the sap from the stem made her fingers tingle. The flower itself was blown and fading, though she was surprised to find anything stubborn enough to still be blooming in November, even in California.

"Pretty," Morgan commented.

"Think Reid will know what it is?"

"Why? Want to start a garden?"

"These are the flowers Hale braided into the rope."

"Well, there are plenty of them here."

The tingling in her fingers felt more like an itch or a burn. Emily fished out an evidence bag and dropped the flower inside, then scrubbed her fingers against her thigh, hoping she wouldn't end up with a rash or an allergic reaction. Morgan raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything more.

They carefully followed the Sheriff around to the front of the house and made their way inside, where Hale had been camping in the remains of a front room. Vandals had defaced the walls with paint, but whatever garbage they'd left had been swept up. Sunlight streamed through the gaps and holes, several which were suspiciously bullet shaped. But if the locals liked to shoot up road signs, they probably thought nothing of using a burnt-out house as a target too.

A cardboard box sat open on a dusty chaise lounge that had probably come from one of the partially intact upper rooms. It held singed books and knickknacks, plus a few framed family pictures. It looked like Hale had begun trying to salvage what he could. The fire here hadn't burned like anything Emily had ever seen. There must have been an accelerant that let the fire department snuff out the fire after it and the Hales were consumed. It was like part of the house had been magically protected.

"No one tried to recover any of this before?" Emily asked.

"Laura took Derek and hightailed it before the place cooled down enough for anyone to try."

"Most seventeen-year-olds would still be in shock. Why'd she run?"

Stilinski shrugged. "Remember, I was only a deputy then. But there was something wrong about the whole thing. The way the house burned, the way no except Peter tried to get out, hell, the way the Hales' old law firm got turfed out and Judge Bierce appointed some no name who never even tried to find Laura or Derek. There's a hell of a lot of money and land tied up in the estate."

"Were Laura and Derek supposed to inherit?" Morgan asked.

"Aside from being the only survivors? Yes. Talia Hale had all her ducks in order. Laura should have inherited the majority of the estate with the rest divided equally amongst the rest of the children. If Laura predeceased her, then it went to the next oldest."

"What about the other adults?"

"All of them used the same law firm." Stilinski scowled. "I looked into it as much as I could before I was shut down by my superiors at the time. I could never prove a damn thing, but Bierce retired to Bermuda a year later."

"You think someone was greedy enough for control of the estate to kill all the Hales?" Morgan asked.

Stilinski gave him a cynical shrug. "I think someone saw an opportunity and grabbed it, but you're the profilers." He scrubbed at his face. "We failed those kids. I don't know if the fire was deliberate or not, but they got screwed."

Emily sighed herself. They saw it too much. So many of their perpetrators were victims themselves, warped by events and other people, and never had a chance to choose what and who they became. Derek Hale was just another in a long, tragic list.

The house creaked and settled around them. Ashy dust tickled at her nose. She could feel it settling against her skin. Six years on, every step still stirred the scent of smoke into the air. At least if there had been a reek of burning flesh, it had gone.

She walked to the wall and fingered one of the bullet holes. The walls had been covered in a green damask. Smoke had darkened it, but she could see a frayed edge of much lighter, brighter color. "This is fresh," she said.

Stilinski turned on his heels, squinting at the walls. "Someone's shot up the place from inside. Those holes weren't here when Findley and I picked him up here."

"No one would hear anything this far out," Emily reasoned. "Who do you think they were shooting at?"

"Hale," Hotch said in a grim tone.

Morgan peered at the floor. "Gotcha," he exclaimed and pointed to glint near the fireplace. "Brass." He pulled on gloves, plucked up the empty cartridge, and tucked it in an evidence bag. "7.65mm. Might get a print."

"No sign of blood," Emily said. "And no one's cleaned anything up beyond some sweeping."

"I guess we can hope no one got shot."

She was still looking at the floor for any blood. "Morgan. You've got gloves on." She crouched and pointed to what she'd seen. Morgan saw and swore.

Emily opened another evidence bag so Morgan could drop the dart and broken wire into it. She held it up for Hotch and Stilinski.

"Taser."

No one commented but they all knew things looked worse for Derek Hale than they already had. The fake CBI agent had used a Taser on him at the station. Maybe he'd tried a second time.

"I'll amend the APB on him as soon as we're back at the office," Stilinski stated when they'd looked closely for any other evidence and come up empty. "For all the good it's done so far."

"Maybe we'll get lucky," Morgan said. "It has to happen sometime, right?"

Emily took the front passenger side seat to prove him wrong about his luck.

~~~

Allison Argent squared her jaw and pretty as you please told them exactly nothing useful. She wanted to help, but she hadn't seen anything. Certainly not Derek Hale and she had no idea why Scott would think Hale had anything against her. He'd driven her home from a party once when Scott ditched her. Maybe he'd said something to Scott about that.

No, she wasn't dating Scott. They broke up. Yes, he wanted to get back together with her, but she had to think about her grades.

She thought Mr. Jurasik's death was terrible. Her parents had agreed; they'd let her leave school the day of the memorial service to attend. Lydia had showed up too. She'd said it gave her an excuse to wear black and look good, but she'd been upset. Lydia was much nicer than she liked to let on.

Dave had to admire her spiel, even while he was frustrated as hell. The bit about the party was interesting. It painted Scott McCall in a different light. Yet Allison lied about him and Stiles staying in the cafeteria. Jackson Whittemore had made no bones about not liking McCall but hadn't mentioned his and Stiles' absence either. It was Lydia Dave thought had told the truth. She refused to be anyone's easy tool to hand.

And that left them with Mieczyslaw 'Stiles' Stilinski.

Not a kind name to saddle your child with, in Dave's opinion, unless you lived in Poland. Reid pronounced the name without difficulty; JJ didn't even try, mentioning, "If he prefers 'Stiles' we should respect that."

It was impossible to miss that Stiles had revised, refined and rehearsed his story until it probably tripped from his tongue easier than the truth ever would. He watched the clock apprehensively, spun off on tangents, jiggled his knee and gestured enthusiastically enough to nearly fall out of his chair. It was amusing in low doses, but Dave guessed his teachers didn't appreciate the disruptions and inattention every day.

He'd heard one deputy in the break room talking about him. _"It's no wonder the Sheriff picks up all those double shifts. It's the only way he can get a break from his kid."_

Stiles played the comic relief as expertly as Lydia did the social butterfly.

He stumbled when Dave asked him about McCall falsely identifying Derek Hale as the attacker. "You were with Mr. McCall the entire time, weren't you?"

"Yeah, sure, Scotty's my best friend. I've got his back."

"You never left the group?"

Stiles narrowed his eyes. The hard look to them belied the softness that still clung to his features. His knee went still. He was all focus now, tense, breathing steadily to a silent internal count. "What?"

"You and Scott," Dave clarified.

"We all tried to hide out in the chem room."

"Before that."

"Why?"

"One of the deputies' reports mentioned your friend had blood on his shoes," Reid said.

Stiles shifted uncomfortably. "I guess he must have stepped in it when we left the cafeteria. It was crazy getting to the chem room."

Dave stayed silent and just looked at the kid. His friend might be a shit liar, but Stiles was really very good. He'd just said two true things that were only a lie if you put them together.

"That is a masterful bit of misdirection," Dave said.

Stiles slowly straightened his posture. "What do you mean?"

"The route you and your friends took to the chem room from the library didn't pass through the corridor where Mr. Jurasik was killed. You and Mr. McCall did leave the cafeteria, though, and he did step in the blood, when you both stepped outside before returning and urging everyone to flee, because you'd both discovered the body," Reid told him.

Stiles recovered his sangfroid quickly. "Fine. We were all in detention, I didn't want to mention we'd disobeyed Harris' moronic order."

"Tell me," Dave said. "Did Mr. McCall see Derek Hale kill the school custodian?"

Stiles' mouth dropped open. He grabbed onto the table to keep from jolting out of his seat. _"What!?_ Please tell me he didn't tell you that?"

"Then you didn't see Mr. Hale in the high school that night when you were with Mr. McCall."

"Uh. No. I didn't see anything. It was darker than a whale's bowels in there. Those corridors don't have any windows, you know. The whole school looks like they accidentally switched the blue prints with a medium security prison. A little barbed wire and hey presto!"

"And it didn't occur to you to say something to that, when you have to have known from your father that the department was expending money and manpower looking for the wrong suspect?" JJ asked.

Stiles cringed. "I guess, but I didn't really know what Scotty said until later and my dad… I disappoint him enough. He'd think Scott was lying because of me. Or just be super mad and start questioning Scott and Scott can't keep a secret. I didn't want him to end up in trouble with my dad."

"Even if it caused an innocent man to be arrested?" Dave asked.

"Derek's a big boy. He can take care of himself. Uh. Mostly. My dad's not the kind of guy to shoot someone down."

Dave squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sure that'll be a great comfort to Mr. Hale if he ends up shot by some other officer or sitting in a jail cell – again – for something he didn't do."

Stiles had his cell phone out and was tapping at it. First the time and then an app that showed the time and the moon. He left it sitting on the table. The app ticked away toward something.

"May I?" Reid asked and reached for the phone. Stiles' shot his hand forward but stopped. Reid looked at the screen. "A lunar calendar? This is very complete. It even shows moonrise and set times."

"Yeah, you know, all the crazies come out for the full moon. My dad always takes the night shift, even though he says it's just an urban legend, so I keep track." Stiles held out his hand for the phone. Reid let him take it.

"Anyway, I did tell my dad Scotty made that shit up. He's looking for Derek because of that creep that tried to strangle me before Houdini-ing out of station." Stiles tapped his throat. The faded bruises were still visible if you looked closely.

"Are we done? It's not like I enjoy suicides, but I'll never get off the bench if I don't show up for practices."

"I'm afraid we still need to go over how you found the body at the gas station," Dave told him.

Stiles rocked back in his chair. Annoyance chased over his face, followed by worry, and then unhappy acceptance. "Fine. Ask away. I just want to say up front, it sucked dirty, hairy donkey balls and I am never using a public bathroom again. I'll meditate it away or piss in a bottle. Seriously. I'm developing a phobia or something."

"Noted," Dave told him.

"Can you think back and tell us how you got to the station and why you were there?" JJ asked.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "In my Jeep. Because I needed gas. I don't have a credit card or anything, so I had to go in and pay with a wad of sweaty ones and fives so the attendant would release the pump. And he wasn't there at the counter. Which I knew was totally weird, because I always buy my gas there and they have a policy. They lock the doors if they have to go out for some reason or even take a piss, 'cause people shoplift shit."

"What time was it?" Reid asked.

"Three-thirty? After school let out. I noticed Roscoe's gas gauge was redlining. I've been letting Scott use my baby sometimes, when I've been grounded, so he could meet Allison – anyway, he was supposed to fill up Roscoe, but he forgot like he always does."

"No lacrosse practice that day?" JJ asked.

"Nope, Coach went in for that thing they do with the barium enema? He told us all about it in Econ. So, no practice. And Harris must have gotten laid or something, because he didn't even threaten me with detention for once. Really, I was having a good day before I found that guy."

Stiles grimaced at the memory. "That was seriously awful. Like, no one, no matter what they've done, deserves to die like that. Even someone horrible like, uh, Pol Pot or Jim Jones. I'm going to have nightmares about that the rest of my life."

"Have you been having nightmares?" Reid asked with some concern.

"Dude, I've been having nightmares since my mom died. It's just new material. Please don't mention that to my dad. I mean, he knows, but he'll start worrying more."

"Why did you look in the bathroom when you couldn't find the attendant?" JJ asked.

"I tried the backroom first. I stuck my head in and said, yo, you've got a customer. So, I came back out, grabbed some Twizzlers and a Monster, and figured I'd hang out until someone showed up. I texted Scotty and my dad to see if he was going to be home for dinner. Still no attendant. What goes in must go out, though, so I headed for the head. I opened the door and – I just backed up and tried not to puke. It wasn't like I could do anything for him. He was in – in pieces. So I backed up, closed the door, and called my dad."

"Did you think the killer might still be there?"

Stiles gaze went distant. "No. Some of the blood was still wet, but some of it was dry. He was dead the whole time I was killing time out front, eating candy. I just – that really bothers me. I wouldn't have – I wouldn't have ignored him like that on purpose. I wouldn't have been eating snack food."

"We know," JJ told him gently.

Stiles was at ease telling them about finding Briggs in the gas station. He wasn't evading or lying and the only guilt he had was not finding the man sooner and that he'd somehow been disrespectful in his obliviousness. The killing didn't tie into whatever the kids were hiding. But the gas station attendant had been a victim of the same weapon, the killing more violent and out of control than any of the others, committed by someone with the same extraordinary strength. The video surveillance system had a six-hour cycle. By the time it was shut down, anything useful had already been deleted. Though the unsub must have been coated in blood, they hadn't left a sign behind, escaping by breaking out a window. No one had seen a damned thing.

Stiles' phone beeped an alarm. He looked at and groaned. "Can I go now?"

"Yes," Dave told him, "go."

Stiles bolted out of the conference room. The clock on the wall ticked.

Reid consulted his own phone. "It's interesting that he had that app open to tell him when the moon would come up," he said.

"Maybe it's like he said," JJ offered.

Reid held his own phone up to show them the time. He'd downloaded the same app Stiles had on his. A gentle ding sounded as the clock showed 4:12 pm.

"Moonrise."

~~~

The evidence from the Hale house logged in and turned over to the techs for forensic examination, they picked up several bags of take-out to cover the lunch they'd missed and the dinner they'd likely work through. Emily didn't remember the flowers from the cemetery until she was stripping off her coat and the bag crackled in her pocket.

Reid was standing in front of one of the white boards, studying the photographs of the students he and Rossi and JJ had interviewed. JJ and Garcia had pounced on the bag and were unpacking boxes of Chinese. Emily needed to get over there before Morgan grabbed all the spring rolls.

She pulled out the bag.

"Hey, Reid?"

"Yes?"

Emily waited until he'd turned toward her and tossed the evidence bag with the flower underhand. Reid fumbled but caught it.

"Can you tell me what this is?"

Reid squinted at the wilted flower inside the bag. The pretty color had darkened to a bruised blue. "Huh."

"What? Don't tell me you're stumped." Emily opened a box. Mu Shu Pork. She opened another one. Wontons. Damn it. They better not have forgotten the spring rolls!

"No. It's aconitum. It's a European import."

"What's aconitum when it's home with its shoes off?" she asked. She tried again. Yes! Spring rolls, yum. Her stomach gurgled demandingly.

"Hey, don't hog them all!" Garcia exclaimed and snagged two before Emily could pull the box close out of reach.

Reid hummed to himself. "Poison. Did you handle this? You should wash your hands and drink extra water if you did. Definitely before you eat."

Everyone stopped and stared at Emily and Reid. She set the box of spring rolls down carefully.

"Reid? What is it?"

"Wolfsbane."

~~~

The thin, pale lines of Kate's scars were fading into nothing. She wouldn't be disfigured, despite that animal. She chalked it up to Victoria's genius stitching her up and good genes. She hadn't changed; she was lucky.

Peter Hale's claws had not turned her.

Kate drifted her fingers over her cheek and down to her chest. Lucky. The scratch of an alpha could turn someone, but not always; it wasn't like the Bite, turn or die. And Peter was dead.

Her eyes didn't flare, she didn't heal instantly, she had no werewolf strength or speed.

The missing time…

No, there was no missing time. She was just sleeping deeply. She needed the rest; she was still healing. The nightmares were just nightmares; her unconscious dealing with recent events.

She didn't need to be anything but human. Kate pulled on the white Beacon Hills High sweater, fluffed her hair, and gave her reflection a flirty smile. She looked like a wet dream.

FBI profilers were interviewing teachers at the high school tomorrow. Allison mentioned it at the tense family dinner earlier. Her niece was cautious around her now. Skeptical. Kate refused to let it bother her. Allison could play with that stupid McCall dog for a while. In fact, he could be even more useful than poor, dear Derek had been once. Derek, she'd had to trick, but McCall would sell out the world to get with Allison.

She and her father could use that, but in the meantime, Kate had needed to tie off one last loose end. Peter hadn't even managed to kill all her accomplices, though the chemistry teacher hadn't been there for actual fire. He'd just showed her how to set something that burned too fast to escape.

Kate added a touch more lipstick. It didn't take much to have Harris panting after her like a dog, but she liked to maximize her assets. She had a change of clothes stashed in a bag behind the seat of her truck as always. She preferred to kill from a distance, but sometimes you just had to get messy, and not even a big smile and a boob flash could distract a state trooper if you were covered in blood at a traffic stop.

Tonight was going to be gory.

She had the modified gloves in her purse. The claws sewn into them came from an omega. Some hunters were so obsessed with the Code, so she had to give them a little push. A clawed-up victim or two usually did the job. The one time it hadn't, the old woman in Tennessee, Kate had had to scramble to get away.

But a long gun had gotten rid of the old woman.

She still stayed away from Tennessee, though, and anyone named Boone.

No one else had ever caught a clue, though.

She patted her purse and sashayed her way out of the house. She had a date, after all.

When she arrived, she pulled on the gloves and clenched her fists. The omega's claws poked out over her knuckles. She'd gotten the idea from watching Wolverine in the X-Men movies. Mutants. Ha. If they were real, they'd need to be hunted down and removed from the gene pool too. Kate imagined how she'd do it when she watched the movie. Wolverine wouldn't even be a challenge, too much like a werewolf.

She hid her hands in a pom-pom.

Harris was waiting for her at the lacrosse pitch, practically salivating.

Kate shimmied her hips with a grin. Her breasts bounced a little under the skintight sweater. The pleats on the cheerleader skirt flared. Harris' eyes nearly bugged out since she wasn't wearing any underwear.

Ugh. Dicks made men so predictable. If it wasn't Catholic school girls, it was cheerleaders. They were all creeps underneath. Kate was about to do the world a favor.

Harris had practically wet himself in eagerness when she 'bumped' into him at the gas station pumps and mentioned her fantasy of making out under the bleachers.

He'd nearly wept when he realized the lacrosse team had practice and it would be full dark before they were all gone. But dark was better for Kate.

She'd giggled and made him promise he'd protect her from anything that went bump in the night. He just had to keep it secret; she didn't want him to get in trouble.

He'd probably have bragged that he was going to bag a hot blonde if she hadn't reminded him fucking on school property could cost him his job.

He never had a clue it was going to cost him his life.

~~~

They shared the pizza and salad she'd ordered before curfew shut the town down and then she put her copy of _The Notebook_ on the DVD player and they watched it.

Jackson settled down when the moon passed its zenith. His claws had come out, he'd snarled and his eyes glowed yellow as he transformed, but Lydia pressed her hand against his furred cheek, and he'd calmed like magic. She was his anchor and he wouldn't hurt her.

Despite all the worry, his shift wasn't a problem. Jackson could control himself for her.

They settled on the couch, her in Jackson's arms, him with his nose tucked to the nape of her neck and one of his hands spread over her stomach where the wounds Peter Hale gave her still ached. The scars remained red and angry, but the doctors promised they would be practically invisible someday.

Jackson swore he didn't care.

At least she could dress to keep them covered and she'd never been a sun worshipper. A tan would make the scars stand out.

The movie had ended. They were drowsily listening to some infomercial when the scream tore out of her throat.

Jackson caught hold of Lydia as she jolted to her feet, blindly trying to follow the force inside her to its source.

"Lydia!" he shouted. She froze. "Lydia, it's okay, it's over.

Lydia shook her head. "No, it isn't."

 

**~~~November 10, 2012~~~**

**Crescent Moon**

 

Melissa had worked the overnight shift for the last – God – nine years, since she shoved Rafael out the door and needed every shift that she could get to pay the bills, keep up the mortgage and pay for Scott's asthma medications and periodic trips to her own emergency room. If Beacon Memorial didn't offer fantastically good health insurance, she couldn't have done it, because Rafael sure as hell never paid any child support.

He'd fucked off to Washington to be a fed and harass other people instead of her, but Melissa thought the FBI damn well should have interviewed her about his 'character' before hiring him.

If they couldn't do a competent background check on the people they hired, she had real doubts about anyone they cleared.

She let herself in the house, noting that for once Scott had remembered to lock the doors, and dumped off her purse and keys at the side table in the hall. The living room was dark, and the kitchen only lit by the microwave's clock. Melissa looked at the time as she fished a frozen lasagna out of the freezer. It was early for Scott to have gone to bed; he was probably playing a video game online with Stiles.

She turned on the oven to pre-heat and fished a bottle of red from the cabinet Scott was forbidden to open. There wasn't much in there, some cooking sherry, a bottle of white wine, and the expensive tequila her abuela had given her last Christmas.

As soon as the food was in the oven, she was taking a glass of wine upstairs, getting out of her scrubs, and enjoying a hot bath.

Scott hadn't needed a refill on his inhaler, which meant she had seventy-five bucks budgeted that weren't spent yet. She'd let Kari take her second shift and the overtime it paid. Not that Melissa didn't need it too, because she had no idea how she was going to pay for Scott's college tuition, but that was what student loans were for, since he didn't have the grades for a scholarship. Or the commitment, she acknowledged. Scott wasn't stupid, but he didn't care about school. He cared about playing lacrosse, and to his credit he was great at it this year, and his new girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend, Melissa corrected herself with a wince.

Scott wasn't dealing with that break-up well. Half of why she'd decided to come home tonight was to share a meal with her son and get him to open up and feel a little better.

She didn't blame Allison – much – since she knew from Scott's complaints that her parents were vehemently against her dating him. Teenagers were rebellious creatures, but Allison had struck her as a nice girl, uninclined to fight much with her parents.

But Melissa would always be on her son's side and if that meant a night of eating cookie dough ice cream and commiserating with him over how awful the Argents were, she could do that.

It would even be nice. Between her job and Scott's school and other activities, she didn't see nearly enough of him. Though she tried to be more present than Noah was in Stiles' life. Stiles was a trouble magnet and annoying half the time, but she knew how much of it was just a need to be noticed. Noah might not spend his nights at the bottom of bottle any longer, but he had replaced it with working at the station far beyond what was necessary. As Sheriff, he should have been doing massive amounts of paperwork, not driving patrol, picking up night shifts, and working cases on top of that.

But she'd interfered once, when Claudia was too far gone to properly care for a little boy, and it wasn't her job to mother Stiles or make Noah straighten up and fly right.

She tolerated Stiles in Scott's life, glad they both had someone, and took care of her own business. She mothered him as much as Stiles and Noah let her get away with and had to leave it at that.

The oven dinged so she slid the lasagna in. She poured her glass of wine and carried it up the stairs.

The growl from Scott's room made Melissa freeze on the stairs. What the hell was that? It came again, accompanied by Stiles' familiar voice spiking high. Video game, she decided. She hadn't thought the speakers to Scott's old computer were that good.

She'd knock on Scott's door. There was enough lasagna for Stiles if he didn't want to go home to an empty house.

"Don't. Scott, you've got to pull yourself together or Derek will do it for you, if you don't end up dead. No Allison, no going out, no turning into a furry rage monster." Stiles didn't do quiet well; Noah had never managed – or was that bothered? – to teach the boy table manners or the concept of inside voice. But even for Stiles, his voice was louder than normal.

"Look, don't kill me, man, but Allison dumped you. She doesn't want to see you, she doesn't want you hanging around her house like a creepy stalker."

Stiles yelled and something hit the door hard enough to shake it on its hinges.

Melissa scowled. Those boys knew better than to let the games get physical. Neither she or Noah could afford to be replacing furniture or electronics all the time. It was one reason she originally acceded to Scott's desire to play lacrosse; she hoped it would help burn some of the ridiculous teenage energy out, let him get physical and comfortable in his changing body.

"Scott!" Stiles yelled. "Stop! _Stop!_ "

Melissa hurried. Stiles sounded afraid, not playing at it.

"If you go out there the Argents will shoot you!"

Oh my God.

The growls became a roar. What was going on? Did they have an animal in there? Something was wrong. Scott was in danger.

She wrenched Scott's door open as whatever was on the other side roared again.

Stiles stumbled forward, which put him between Melissa and Scott. Entirely too close to Scott's raking claws. Scott lurched forward and the chains holding him to the radiator screeched. The radiator groaned. Flakes of paint cracked off it. Scott's eyes burned bright gold in his transformed face, his lips were peeled back like a snarling animal, his ears were long, fur-tipped and pinned back.

"Oh, shit, oh, god, Mrs. McCall, you have to get out of here!" Stiles cried and tried to push her back out of the room.

"Scott!?" she whimpered in horror. No matter how changed he was, she recognized her son in the beast-like thing lunging at Stiles and now her. The glass of wine she'd held hit the floor, spilling onto her feet and rolling toward the stairs.

He roared again.

"I don't think he recognizes you," Stiles said and he was big enough to shove her back.

The radiator groaned louder. Scott was going to break the pipes. Part of Melissa protested the cost of a plumber while the rest of her gibbered in terror.

"What's going on?" she yelled. "What's happened to him!?"

Stiles scrabbled for something on Scott's dresser and dodged back just in time to avoid the claws that raked across the drawers, digging inch deep gauges in the wood.

"Not the time!" Stiles replied.

"Scott, stop it! Stop!" Melissa shouted at her son. She thought he hesitated, thought his strange, bright eyes found her face and knew her, but instead of calming down, he howled and threw himself toward the window over the radiator.

"Oh, shit," Stiles blurted. He aimed the thing he'd grabbed before at Scott. "I can't let him go out there!" A sizzling sound followed and two darts trailing wires crossed the bedroom and sank into Scott's back. Electricity sparked down the wires and into her son. Scott started to scream, seized up and then fell to the floor. The claws on his hands, the fur, everything rippled and sank back into his skin leaving him a normal looking boy again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I had to stop him before he got loose, he's lost control," Stiles babbled. His hand was still planted again Melissa's breast bone, holding her back.

Melissa lifted his hand away and edged around him. "I should check – "

"He'll be fine," Stiles said. "Electricity fucks up the shift, but I'd have to pump it through him non-stop to keep him from healing up." He waggled the Taser in his hand. "I've got to thank Allison for giving me this."

"Allison?" Melissa repeatedly weakly. "Scott's Allison? Allison Argent."

"Yeah. She's pretty decent, even if her family are all batshit loco serial killers." Stiles tipped his head. "But, you know, I think she's Allison's Allison, not anyone else's."

Melissa decided to set aside the serial killers comment for later.

"Stiles?"

He ducked his head. "Um, what?"

Melissa grabbed his shoulders and shook him. _"What the hell is happening to my son!?"_

"Let go," Stiles said, and batted at her arms, "Hey, let go, I'll tell you."

Melissa stepped back and shoved her hands through her hair. "Madre de Dios."

Stiles gave Scott a cautious look. The darts were still in Scott's back and Stiles had kept the Taser in his hand. "Um, okay, okay, I need to stay here and make sure Scotty doesn't hulk out again and take off to prove his undying love to Allison by howling outside her window or mauling someone… "

Melissa sank down to the floor and wrapped her arms around herself. She wanted to go to Scott, to wrap him up and make sure he was okay. At the same time, she wanted to scream and shake and make him get out, because he'd turned into a monster. He wasn't the son she'd raised – in the moments before Stiles tasered him, she'd known he would kill Stiles and her. This wasn't her Scott; it couldn't be.

Stiles sat down beside her and quietly narrated what had happened to her son in the last months. Melissa covered her face in her hands, shocked that she'd come so close to losing Scott and never had a clue.

At the same time, she became angrier and angrier. Angry at what had happened to her son, angry at Stiles, at the Argents, and with Scott for keeping this from her. He'd privileged dating a girl over telling the truth and endangered himself and others by doing so.

"The man – thing – "

"Alpha werewolf," Stiles said helpfully.

Melissa glared at him. "Monster," she said. "It's dead?"

"Dead. Believe me, it is so dead," Stiles confirmed, bobbing his head. "I shot him myself. Kate and Chris Argent shot him too, and Scott – okay, Scotty just got thrown around a lot. But Derek – "

"Derek Hale."

Stiles bobbled his head.

"Who is a werewolf."

"Born wolf, yeah, so he kinda knows what he's doing? Like, more than Scott does or I can figure out off the Internet or from books."

"The man Scott said was at the high school when the custodian was killed? The one who was arrested for killing his sister?"

Stiles rubbed at the back of his neck while looking aside. It was his 'ashamed of something' tell. Stiles was smart enough to think up perfectly believable lies given the opportunity, but he was just too open to be good at telling them. Scott, on the other hand, could deny being guilty with the most innocent look on Earth, but couldn't keep his lies consistent. Melissa had made a pact with herself to never tell either of them how she could see through them every time.

"What?" she demanded.

"He wasn't arrested – he was a person of interest. Only he was in New York when his sister was killed. Tara, Deputy Tara, she checked it out. Derek was totally alibied. And he didn't bite Scott, either, but we didn't know that, just that he was out in the Preserve and a werewolf, so Scott assumed it had to be him."

Melissa nodded in understanding. She was familiar with the way Scott thought and reacted. Scott was uncomplicated and expected everyone else to be the same. He had a difficult time with ambiguity.

Stiles looked down at his hands and fooled with the Taster until Melissa had to slap his fingers away from it.

"Scott lied about Derek being at the high school."

She squeezed her eyes closed. "Why?"

"Because we couldn't say a werewolf was there and Allison's family are all werewolf hunters, so he thought they'd like him better if he threw Derek under the bus," Stiles blurted quietly. "I told my dad, though. I didn't want to get Scott in trouble, really, but I didn't want Derek to get arrested or shot or something."

Melissa squeezed his hand.

"Anyway, Derek's a real dick most of the time, but he did offer to teach Scott. And he killed Peter."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," Stiles whispered, "I was there. I shot him. And Derek killed him. _Kill_ killed him. There was a lot of blood and screaming and shooting and Peter died, so Derek became the alpha. And I think Chris Argent cut Peter in two, because they found his body in the parking lot at Beacon Crossing the other day, like that."

Melissa whispered an old prayer from her childhood under her breath. She didn't go to church, she barely believed, but, "Is there a way to fix him? Scott? To help him? A priest or holy water or a cure?"

Stiles shook his head. "I've looked and looked and being a werewolf isn't like being possessed by evil or anything churchy. Crosses and silver and garlic don't bother werewolves. Only wolfsbane. That's poison to werewolves." He pulled in a shaking breath. "It's poison to people too, but really bad for werewolves. It's like sepsis and an anaphylactic reaction and gangrene all at once and it keeps them from healing."

Melissa tried to consider everything Stiles had told her. "Scott wasn't like this last month, was he?" she asked.

"No. Allison was his anchor and now it's like he's off his rocker."

"Why isn't this Derek helping him?"

"Uh, because Scott hates him and wants him to die and won't listen to anything he says? I love Scott, he's my brother, but he super stupid about Derek. And Derek's got his pack to look after. He's tried to help. He really has."

"All right." Melissa squeezed Stiles' hand again. She was unwilling to let go of it, even though she could hear the persistent ding of the oven timer from downstairs and red wine had seeped into the seat of her scrubs. "All right. What happens next?"

Stiles shrugged. "I keep Scott from doing something stupider than usual. He'll be okay in the morning, better than me, and maybe by next month he'll have a handle on his rage issues, or we'll find a better place to lock him up for the full moon."

She wanted to blame Stiles for this. He'd taken Scott out into the woods. But Melissa knew that Scott was equally culpable. He'd made his decision to go with Stiles. He could have admitted he was with Stiles and gone home with him when the Sheriff found his son. That had been Scott's choice.

What the hell did she do with a son who was a werewolf? She'd seen him murderous and crazed tonight. Could she forget that? No. Could she put it aside or balance it against the boy she loved with every fiber in her? Could she live with him in her house, even, now that she knew?

~~~

The scream ripped her out of sleep, jolted up onto her elbows, already struggling to free herself from her bed. The sheets tangled around her legs. Lydia kicked the off while she gasped for breath.

The house was quiet and dark. Her mom had gone to Sonoma for a spa retreat. Her father was in San Francisco with his bimbo. As pretentious as they both were, they'd never had live in help, only a twice a week housekeeper and a yard service that included taking care of the pool. There was no one to wake when Lydia did.

No one to care she felt like her throat should be bleeding, sliced open by hundreds of razors and seared with flame from the scream.

She didn't remember what she'd been dreaming.

It wasn't what woke her. The scream had torn through her sleep like something from outside her mind, like a bullet piercing her body.

She perched on the edge of her bed, heels pressed against the frame, hands crimped round the edge of the mattress. Her phone, lying on her nightstand, charging, told her it was past three in the morning.

When Lydia could make herself move, she checked the phone for messages, for any clue, but there was nothing.

She could feel it though, the sense of death that had brought her awake to herald it. It was out there. It had already happened. She knew this, the way she knew her heartbeat, the way she knew how to breathe. The knowing felt intrinsic to her existence.

Clairvoyance, maybe, she wondered? But it felt very narrow, very precise.

The sense of death rested inside her. She turned in a circle and felt it like a compass needle swinging and quivering inside her, pointing to magnetic north. Except this north would be a dead body. She knew it.-

It was a terrifying knowledge.

Lydia made herself stay calm. She went downstairs and fixed a cup of lemon-ginger tea laced liberally with honey. It helped her raw throat and her nerves. She drank it then dressed, wrapping a stylish wool coat around her.

She started to call Jackson and reconsidered. Jackson needed to stay under the radar. She wasn't even sure he'd pick up, but she knew his parents would notice if he left in the middle of the night. Provided he was even home; he'd meant to join Derek and the rest of the pack for a runaway from Beacon Hills.

That ruled out the werewolves.

Allison was her friend, but Allison was also an Argent. They kept her on a tight leash lately. Moreover, Lydia didn't want any Argent knowing she was in any way other than a normal human girl, not even Allison. She'd survived Peter Hale's attack without turning, that made her notable already.

Victoria Argent had watched Lydia like a hawk as she walked up to their door, eyebrows arching as Lydia climbed the steeps. Lydia assumed there was something there to repel a werewolf.

There was Danny, who was both sweet and smart, but he had no clue to the shadow that existed parallel to the world they knew. Lydia didn't want to drag him into it.

That didn't leave her with many options, she realized. Lydia didn't have friends, beyond Allison. She had her clique, the girls whose existence rotated around being pretty and popular by tearing down everyone else. They weren't even allies, more like sharks and if they smelled Lydia's blood in the water, they'd turn on her in an instant.

She scrolled down to a number she wasn't sure she'd ever used. She wasn't sure how she'd even acquired it or why.

Stiles.

He and McCall were dead center involved with everything happening in Beacon Hills. They were allies now, though; at least, Stiles was. She could probably trust him. He'd figured her out before anyone else.

Lydia disliked using him, because it would encourage him to keep pursuing her when she really found his near obsession deeply creepy, but she knew he'd come. He wouldn't care about the curfew or cops.

With a sigh, she made the call, then endured his sleepy spluttering when he answered.

"Stiles, this is Lydia. I need you to come to my house and help me with something."

He protested in confusion.

"Something's happened."

"What?"

"I'll explain when you get here."

"It can't wait until morning?"

"No. Either come now or I'll go alone." The urge to move, to go to the source of her scream, thrummed under her skin. She tapped her foot restlessly. She had to go. She just didn't want to go alone.

"Okay, okay," Stiles mumbled. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Good. Thank you."

He was on time at least, arriving in that wreck of a Jeep. He leaned over and opened the passenger door from inside instead of getting out to help her in, but Lydia didn't expect gentlemanly behavior from him. He had the manners of a goat most of the time.

She could still make out a pillow crease along his cheek. He'd layered one of his awful plaid shirts over a t-shirt and had on sweatpants. If his hair had been long enough, Lydia was sure he would have had unrepentant bedhead.

"Okay," he said as she got in, "what is it?"

"Someone's dead."

Stiles' jaw snapped shut in the midst of a yawn and he stared at her wide-eyed. "You killed someone? Why? How – "

"No," Lydia told him. "Someone is dead. I know it. We have to find the body."

"You know how crazy that sounds?" he asked.

"That's why I called you." Lydia buckled her seatbelt then placed her hands over her purse on her lap. "Go straight until I tell you to turn."

Stiles steered the Jeep back onto the pavement and let it roll slowly down the empty residential street. He kept sneaking glances at Lydia. He rolled through several intersections without coming to a complete stop and only tapped his brakes when a housecat meandered across in front of them.

Lydia consulted her inner compass. "Turn left next."

"Where are we going?"

"I'll know when we get there."

"Did you have, like, a vision?"

"I woke up screaming," she said matter-of-factly though terror tingled under skin and along her nerves. She knew this was real, but what if it wasn't? What if that conviction was another symptom of her losing her mind? Would there be voices next? Whispers and taunts that would destroy her ability to function? If so, she'd rather have died of the Bite.

"But not from a nightmare?" That was what she did like about Stiles. He didn't have to have every step explained to him. He knew she knew the difference between a nightmare and something else.

"Not from a nightmare," Lydia confirmed. "Right at the intersection."

Stiles flicked on his blinker. They were closer to the center of town. They might even cross paths with a patrol car coming to or from the station. It wasn't too likely though, since the morning shift change wouldn't come until six.

Lydia realized they were tracing her usual route to the high school. The sense of where to go lurched when she thought of the high school, growing stronger and more urgent. She gasped.

"What is it?" Stiles demanded.

"It's the school. He's at the school," Lydia whispered. She could feel the death, the soul wrenched from its seat, its outrage, hovering near its wretched body. "Hurry."

Stiles pushed the Jeep past the speed limit.

The student parking lot was empty, pavement illuminated by orange-tinted lights. Lights shown through some of the buildings' windows. The lacrosse pitch was dark though, the bleachers almost indistinguishable from the looming blackness of the forest.

"You know, I have to hang out here enough during weekdays," Stiles said as he set the Jeep's brake.

Lydia ignored him. The pull to the death yanked like a barbed line sunk into her chest.

"Hey, hey, hey, wait for me!" Stiles called. He scrambled after her, a large four-cell Maglite in one hand. It wouldn't provide any kind of defense against a werewolf, but the light was good. "Lydia?"

She couldn't spare him enough attention to answer. The pull consumed her awareness. Her boots sank into the muddy turf. They would be ruined, but it didn't matter to her.

She didn't need to see any longer. Death was so close Lydia could close her eyes and find it blind.

She led Stiles under the bleachers unerringly. His flashlight's beam swayed over the still wet blood stains. Lydia blinked as she saw the body. The pull she'd been feeling since she woke up snapped. It was like she was waking again, as if she'd only dreamed being awake before.

Stiles let out a shriek and the flashlight waved wildly. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

Lydia reached out and grabbed onto his arm, forcing him to aim the flashlight at the body again.

"He's dead!" Stiles squawked. "Dead! I mean, holy shit, he's de – is that _Mr. Harris!?"_

 

**~~~ November 11, 2012~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

 

Hotch looked at his team as they trouped into the conference room. They looked as tired and frustrated by the case as he felt. Normally, they would have had at least a preliminary profile ready by day two after their arrival.

Adrian Harris had been nearly universally disliked. Hated by students and despised by his colleagues. He had gone on the wagon after his DUI arrest, likely fearing the loss of his job, and none of his barfly friends had stuck with him. His ex-wife had left town eight years ago and was remarried with three kids and a successful wife and life in Napa Valley.

It seemed unlikely that Stiles Stilinski would coincidentally find another body, though he swore up and down that was what had happened. Harris was under the high school's bleachers. Which were conveniently bordered by forest.

Stiles and Lydia Martin had no believable reason for being at the high school in the middle of the night.

Hotch had watched Sheriff Stilinski's entire body sag in relief when Melissa McCall confirmed that Stiles and Scott had been at her home all night until he got a call from Lydia. Preliminary TOD indicated Harris had been dead for several hours at that point. That left Lydia Martin as a suspect, though, as she claimed to have been home alone.

They'd brought both kids in for questioning, before releasing them, and then Melissa and Scott McCall. McCall seemed befuddled by it all, repeating in awe, "Mr. Harris? It was Mr. Harris?" If he'd had anything to do with it, it was an Oscar-worthy performance.

Stilinski confirmed his son's alibi again, asking Melissa McCall, "Weren't you on night shift?" JJ was in the interview room with them, while the rest of the team observed.

Melissa McCall looked haunted, but she pressed her lips together and then said, "I let Kari take it. She needs the overtime even more than I do. I went home around eight. I meant to get some extra sleep, but you know how it is. Sometimes you just can't wind down. Stiles sat with me. We watched movies all night."

"And Scott?"

"Between school, lacrosse, and his job at the vet clinic, he was worn out," she answered. "He's not a night owl like Stiles."

"You would have probably enjoyed a quiet night for yourself," Stilinski said.

"Sometimes it's nice not to be alone. Stiles hasn't changed; you know how protective he can be. He thought I needed company." Her voice trembled for a moment. "Sometimes it seems like I don't know my own son. Stiles at least seems to appreciate me for more than filling the refrigerator and doing laundry. I haven't been all that fair to him, always blaming him when Scott gets in trouble."

Melissa McCall wasn't lying, Garcia had already confirmed when she'd gone off shift, but she was frightened. She had it under steely control, but she was terrified underneath, something like horror lurking at the corners of her mouth and eyes. There was a deep, tectonic anger there too. But not a clue to what made her feel those emotions or hide them.

Hotch had seen it all flare briefly, when she looked at Scott. Her lips quivered then firmed. "I have to go to work now, Noah." She gave everyone a stressed smile and left without speaking to Scott.

Melissa McCall was afraid of her son.

It left Hotch deeply uneasy, because their tentative profile didn't fit Scott McCall and he couldn't have had anything to do with Julia Baccari's original attack, but if they left her out, left out the Hale fire, then Scott McCall would rate at least a second look as a suspect.

So would Stiles Stilinski.

It was like they had the pieces to a puzzle picture of the sky. All of them were blue. And someone had dumped in another puzzle's worth that were the same color.

"Garcia," he said. No cinnamon rolls this morning and she'd subdued her usual bright attire. Even her hair was straight today.

"Yes sir. New stuff and not so new stuff. I dug deep and found out our dead school bus driver was the fire inspector six years ago. He was the one who declared the Hale fire was electrical and got the case closed. In like two days. The place was still so hot no one could go in, but he signed off on it. Pretty questionable when you add in the $25,000 deposit to his bank account the day after the fire and that he was fired for insurance fraud six months later."

"Put that together with two guys with a history of arson for fun and profit and Baumann the fire-setter and it's hard not figure they were all involved in the Hale fire," Morgan stated.

"You are oh so right, babe," Garcia said. "I sent copies of all the incident reports, the ones the firefighters on scene wrote up, along with pictures taken during and after the fire to Phil Unduwe, at NCVAC."

Hotch knew Special Agent Unduwe from several cases that had involved arson, he was one of the BATF's Criminal Investigative Analysts assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at Quantico. Unduwe had proved his skills on several bombing investigations working with the Bureau. His expert testimony had convinced more than one jury to convict as well.

"He said there was no way that was an electrical fire. The fire started in multiple places, not one, and outside the house, not inside. He said you could see the singe scars from the accelerant in some places and whoever closed it was blind or dirty."

"Did he have any ideas why the Hales didn't try to get out?" Rossi asked.

"In fact, he did," Garcia told them. "He said that looking at the way the house burned and the parts still standing, the windows and doorways were all immediately engulfed in flames and the fire burned incredibly hot – it actually burned itself out before it consumed the whole house. The upper stories were filled with smoke. They took cover in the basement. The foundation was stone and concrete, there was a steel fire door even, but the fire was so hot it cracked the stone, melted the door and sucked all the oxygen out in one huge _whoosh_. He said they probably passed out before they burned, if it's any comfort. Which, I know isn't a lot, but I hate thinking of those little kids burning, so I guess, small, tiny mercies."

Emily shook her head, shiny dark ponytail swinging. "And six years later our unsub is killing the people who helped burn the Hales. He burns them as a reminder of why they have to die. Clear cut revenge, but why Laura and Peter?"

"No, why the _Hales_ to begin with," Reid said. "It's about killing all of the Hales."

"Garcia, did you find anything to link Baccari to the family before she showed up as Jennifer Webb?" Hotch asked.

"Oh, yes! It's thin. Eight years ago, Julia Baccari's girlfriend Kali Patterson spent a week in Beacon Hills. Julia was with her. But that's it; no explanation why they were here."

"What about the girlfriend? Where is she?"

Garcia shook her head, earrings dancing. "Kali Patterson fell off the grid seven years ago, the same time Julia was attacked."

"Another victim?" Rossi speculated.

"Or the unsub," Emily added.

"Find out everything about Kali Patterson you can," Hotch directed.

"I hear and obey."

Reid fussed with the papers in one of their files. "These killings began with Laura Hale because she came back. Why did she come back? Who didn't want her back? It may not be revenge at all. The motive may be money, though I think it's something more."

"The Sheriff mentioned a different lawyer being appointed by the court to handle the Hale estate after the fire and that it hadn't been dispersed to the heirs the way it should have been," Hotch remembered.

"I'll still working on that," Garcia promised.

"Laura Hale came back and made an appointment with the law firm, probably to discuss the estate," Morgan said. "She may have been asking questions about the fire. If she'd come to the Sheriff, what do you bet he'd have re-opened the investigation?"

"Laura coming back panicked the unsub," Emily picked up on that. "They'd already got away with the arson and the attack on Baccari. This unsub is arrogant. Killing is his or her preferred option. They get rid of Laura. No one suspects them. But the unsub is also spooked. All the accomplices in the fire are loose ends, potential witnesses against them."

"Plus, he's got a taste for it," Rossi concluded. Unlike Emily, he just went with calling the unsub _he_ until they had proof otherwise. He didn't disagree with her efforts to keep them from making assumptions, he just didn't want to waste time perpetually correcting himself. "Just to muddy the waters, he adds the fire thing. If anyone connects his victims, it'll look like revenge is the motive."

"Revenge is one of the classic motives for arson," Reid said. "He may have been exacting it against the Hales originally. The classic motives for arson are revenge, vandalism, crime concealment, profit and excitement. Female arsonists are likely to have a history of sexual abuse. Mental illnesses as a whole are over-represented among arsonists. For example, arson offenders are twenty times more likely to have a diagnosis of schizophrenia than the general population."

Reid's painful fear of succumbing to his mother's mental illness no doubt prompted his familiarity with that statistic.

"But the unsub didn't stop with the Hales," JJ pointed out. "Or even with the accomplices."

"No," Rossi said. "He might have started out killing for revenge or profit and to cover up his crimes, but he isn't a compulsive arsonist. The unsub's a compulsive killer. Greed might have cracked the seal on the jar holding his bloody impulses, but now the demons are out and in control. He won't stop until someone stops him."

"Or her," Emily reminded him.

"Or her," he amended.

Hotch looked at the mosaic of victims. Reid had added pictures of all the dead Hales, from grandmother Minerva in her green-tinted granny glasses to the youngest child still swaddled after delivery. They were all attractive, radiating an intense sort of energy even in a still frame. The blood related Hales showed a strong resemblance. Dark to black hair ran in the family, high cheekbones and sharp jawlines. Flashbulb red-eye, lens flare and glasses reflections obscured their eye color in several of the pictures. Records indicated they'd all shared brown or hazel eye coloration though, except Peter Hale with his blue eyes. They all stared into the camera's eye with a sort of solemn defiance, unhappy with it.

"Are we ready to give a profile?" Morgan asked.

Hotch frowned. They had a lot of speculation, too much information that pointed in too many directions, and his instincts were yelling they were missing something critical.

"Not yet, Morgan."

Morgan frowned then shrugged, as though he wanted to object but his own little voice was telling him the same thing.

"We need more."

"Then more you shall have," Garcia said.

"Start with the Hale family," Rossi told her. "Financials, criminal history, legal history, relationships, medical. Something about them is the key."

"When you have that, find out about the Argents," Hotch requested. He had a hunch after reading the transcripts of the interviews with the kids. The unsub had been at the high school for a reason. Jurasik hadn't been his target. Someone there had. Maybe it had been Harris, but then why chase the kids to the chem lab? It wasn't Stiles, Lydia or Jackson. That left McCall and the Argent girl. And McCall, though he'd backtracked, had believed the killer had come there for her.

"Got it, got it, got it. If it's out there, I will find it for you."

Hotch left the team and found Chief Deputy Graeme at her desk. She looked even more tired than his own team did. It reminded him the Sheriff's office and its people were still performing all their normal policing duties while working the homicides.

He tried a smile for her. JJ told him he looked so stern most of the time that he unnerved people unfamiliar with him.

"Any progress finding Derek Hale?"

He might hold the key to identifying the unsub. In any case, Hotch was certain Hale was in danger. If he was still alive. The unsub had either displayed or left all his kills, though. It gave Hotch hope the young man was just that good at eluding the police.

She shook her head. The smell of her shampoo reminded him of Haley and he missed her abruptly, sharply, with a pain like a wound. "Sorry. Wherever he's hiding out, he knows not to use credit cards or his car. I'm not saying it's impossible to get out Beacon Hills on foot, but he wouldn't have had any hiking or camping gear."

"All right. Thanks."

"This case is giving everyone fits. Having some looney come in here masquerading as a state investigator has everyone paranoid," she offered unhappily. "There are idiots circulating a petition to hold a recall election. Like it's Noah's fault." Graeme hit print and a machine at the other end of the room started. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it's sort of reassuring that you didn't cruise in here and solve everything in five minutes."

"I understand, but the BAU is simply here to help. I just wish we were being more help. It's giving us fits too."

Morgan leaned out the doorway to the conference room. "Hey, Hotch. Garcia has something new."

"Back to the salt mines," Graeme sympathized as she began filling in another form.

~~~

Stiles settled into a seat beside Lydia. He had a book in his hands. He set it on the library table and pushed it toward her. Lydia pretended she wasn't intrigued by the leather and gilt and the sense of something, maybe power, the book radiated.

"The alpha bit you, just like Jackson and Scott," he said in a low voice, without looking at her. He pulled his laptop from his school bag and added AP Bio textbook. If Mrs. Schuster looked over at them, he'd seem to be studying. It was more stealth than she'd credited him having. But they were all changed since the beginning of the school year. "Scott healed overnight. Jackson's bite disappeared in _hours_."

"And I'm stuck with scars," Lydia complained in an undertone. She didn't want people to know she was talking to Stiles anyway. Her place as Queen Bee of the school would suffer. Though she didn't care as much as she thought she would. She had Jackson and with what she knew he wasn't dumping her no matter what and she had Allison. In a way, she even had Stiles and Scott, if she wanted them. The adulation of the vapid twits who thought high school was so important didn't mean much any longer.

"Yeah, but you shouldn't be," Stiles said. He flashed a glance her way then pretended to be interested in his screen. "You should either turn or reject."

"How do you know?"

"I've been reading. Also, if you know what you're looking for there are some DarkNet sites. I even found a hunter forum." His mobile features folded into a look of sheer disgust. "They're like if the Inquisition had a baby with Nazis and then left it to be raised by those cannibals from _The Hills Have Eyes_."

"Lovely."

"Yeah, Allison is proof neither nature or nurture are destiny."

Considering her own mother and father, Lydia found herself deeply grateful for the sentiment.

She fussed with hair to hide that she was talking. "Where did you get this?"

"Interlibrary loan is a beautiful thing." Stiles paused. "Derek. He thought I wanted it for Scott."

Lydia gestured impatiently. "What did you find?"

"Some stuff about how a werewolf bite from an alpha can sometimes go wonky, like they'll turn into something that's not a werewolf. The books talk about the shift reflecting the soul, which I figure sort of means who they are inside," Stiles said. "There's even been omegas that didn't know they were werewolves. They went into denial or something like fugue states and don't even remember when they shift."

"I haven't been experiencing fugue states, Stiles," Lydia chided him. She'd been in a coma and she'd woken up screaming, but all her time was accounted for.

"Nope." Stiles popped his lips over the word. "I found something else in that book. I think I did. I had to piece the translation together from Google."

Lydia sighed in exasperation. "Google?"

"Hey, do you read Archaic Latin?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," she said.

Stiles' mouth dropped open and he stared at her wide-eyed.

"You're going to catch flies."

He snapped his mouth shut. "That's so amazing. You can check the book yourself." He shoved it into her hands.

"Yes."

"I think it said that the only way a werewolf alpha's bite wouldn't either kill or turn someone is if they're already something else. Other supernatural beings are immune to it."

Lydia gave up pretending she was ignoring him and glared. "You think I'm something supernatural?"

"I think you're a goddess," he agreed, "but also, yes, supernatural."

"Wouldn't I know that?"

"Maybe no? Look, born werewolves don't go all furry and growly until puberty. Not everyone born in a werewolf family is born one. So sometimes, if they get with someone human from a werewolf family, they have little werewolves."

"Simple genetics."

"Maybe it works the same with other supernaturals."

"A recessive contributed from maternal and paternal sides," Lydia said thoughtfully. "It could be latent. Or just enough to make me immune." How disappointing if that was the explanation.

"Yeah, I think it's something more," Stiles whispered. "The screaming thing? Every time you've screamed, it's lined up with someone dying violently."

Lydia felt ill. "What?"

"I think you're a banshee."

 

**~~~November 12, 2012~~~**

**Sickle Moon**

 

Stiles wondered how Scott didn't see how sketchy Deaton was. Sure, the guy was a vet and good with animals. That didn't make him a saint. Stiles was sure there were evil bastards who loved their pets. Look at all the Bond villains who had cats.

Evil cats, probably, but still, the villains put up with the hair everywhere from them. Probably had a minion assigned to lint roller everything.

He almost slapped himself when he realized his brain was going off on a tangent. His Adderall was pretty much worn off for the day. He was trying to be better about not over-doing with the medication. If he did, he'd have to either try to tough it out when his prescription ran out, score some from one of the local dealers, or admit he'd used more the recommended dosage to his dad so he could get the script refilled. He did not want to sit through the controlled substances and addiction lecture again.

"Focus," he whispered to himself.

Scott might be a werewolf now, but he was still completely oblivious. He was oblivious to how weird it was that Deaton knew all about werewolves and the Hales and hunters but hadn't done anything to help Derek or his sister or Peter when the fire happened. Or how he kept trying to drive a wedge between Scott and Derek when he should be encouraging the stubborn jerk to join the pack – for Scott's good at the very least.

As far as Stiles was concerned, the only thing Alan Deaton had going for him was that he'd hired Scott as part time help and was understanding about scheduling him around school and lacrosse practice and teaching Scott vet stuff. Deaton was just too good at getting into Scott's head, though. Scott was full of Deaton said this and Deaton said that, like Deaton knew more about being a werewolf than the actual werewolves did.

Scott just didn't see how weird that was in the context of everything that had happened.

Stiles, however, did, because he was both awesome and paranoid.

Deaton knew a lot. Stiles figured it was time to find out what. Scott never even noticed when Stiles pocketed his key ring while they were studying, slipped into the bathroom with it and made impressions of all his keys – including the ones to Deaton's clinic. Honestly, Scott needed to be more careful. His mom had pitched a fit when she found out Stiles had a copy of their house keys, and Scott still paid no attention.

Getting Deaton's house keys proved much harder and instinct had kept Stiles away from that one glass cabinet. When he started toward it, he'd swear he saw orange and dark blue lines flare around it. Maybe it was electrified or alarmed somehow. Anyway, he couldn't see anything useful behind the glass, just creepy shit in jars of formaldehyde, like set dressing for a mad scientists' lair.

Though he wouldn't have minded examining the three-headed pig fetus closer. That was gross but cool. It had three little curled tails too. If it had lived, Stiles would totally have named it Cerboarus.

He had to come in while Scott was there, but while he and Deaton were so busy so they couldn't see Stiles slide into Deaton's office to search it. Luckily, Stiles was only a klutz when he was thinking too hard about what his body was doing – like lacrosse – or distracted. Admittedly, he was distracted a lot, and he had a super strong startle response, but when he was intent on what he was doing, he could be surprisingly smooth.

He got into Deaton's office with a copy of Scott's keys while Scott was helping Deaton deal with Mrs. Pulaski's Giant Schnauzer. Mrs. Pulaski had a wood stove and a rick of firewood. When she'd gone outside to get wood, the dog had gone wild pawing at the wood pile and uncovered a sleepy and pissed off rattlesnake. He had a nasty bite on one front paw that swelled so badly the skin split open.

Stiles had puked into his mouth a little when he saw it and Mrs. Pulaski was in hysterics, half over her poor baby getting hurt and half that without the dog she'd have been bit. Deaton had rushed the dog into the operating room, along with his tech and Scott. Stiles had been drafted to get Mrs. Pulaski settled and slipped back to get her a cup of coffee.

It gave him the perfect opportunity.

And, joy, Deaton's keys were in the top middle drawer of his desk!

But then Stiles had to be patient, but that was probably good. He got the poor woman her coffee and sat with her, all the while burningly aware of the key impressions waiting in his backpack.

As soon as he got home, he'd oil the molds then fill them with super weld epoxy. It hardened up strong enough to hold metal parts together and he'd discovered it could make a decent key copy. The copies didn't hold up but would work once or twice. And no locksmith had any records of them, either.

He made the copies that night and let them cure. Twenty-four hours and they were as hard as they were going to get.

"I need a look-out," Stiles told Scott as they walked out of the school the next day. "Dude, you're perfect. You can use your wolfy senses – "

Scott shook his head. "I can't."

"No practice today and I know you don't start at the clinic for two hours," Stiles objected.

"No, Stiles, listen. I won't, okay?"

Stiles came to a stop halfway down the steps from the main doors. He stared at Scott as he kept walking. "What?" He scrambled after his friend. "Scott, Scotty, you're – We need to know what Deaton knows. Listen, I'm doing this for you – "

"No, you're not, and I don't want you to," Scott told him. "I'm meeting Kira. I won't violate my boss's privacy. Deaton's been good to me. I'm not helping you break into his house. That's illegal, Stiles, and it's _wrong_."

He walked away, not allowing Stiles a chance to argue his side or even say anything. It hurt and it also made him angry. Scott didn't appreciate that Stiles was risking getting in trouble for him. Meeting his latest girlfriend – even though he was still hung up on Allison – was more important than helping his friend not be caught breaking the law.

"You suck," Stiles muttered.

"McCall blew you off?" Jackson asked from his shoulder. Stiles leaped into the air in surprise and nearly fell down the rest of the steps. Jackson caught his arm and pulled him up until Stiles had his feet under him again. It was the nicest thing Jackson had ever done for him. Possibly the nicest thing Jackson had ever done for anyone in his life.

"You heard that?" Stiles squeaked. Jackson would narc on him before he'd even committed the B&E. Fuck his life.

Oh. Oh, yeah, of course, Jackson heard. Jackson was a member of the wolfy club now.

"Look, you can just keep your mouth shut. I'm doing this for Lydia – "

"I know. I'm not as out of touch with reality as your dumb ass buddy, Stilinski," Jackson snapped. "This happened to me, and something is going on with Lydia, and I want to know everything I can."

"Oh."

"Remember I was there with you that night," Jackson added. He tugged Stiles down the steps and headed for his Jeep. "My dad is still complaining about the Porsche needing to be reupholstered because I got Lydia's blood on the driver's seat."

"Boohoo, break my heart," Stiles said.

"If you need to get into the vet's house, I'll be your look out." Jackson sneered a little. "I won't get distracted, either."

Stiles opened his mouth to protest Scott wouldn't, but the truth was, Scott might. He could pay attention to things, even be down-right obsessive, but only if he was engaged. Anything he didn't want to do, he just half-assed.

Though Stiles couldn't really be mad at him long for not wanting to commit a crime. It was sort of ironic that Stiles was the Sheriff's son, but Scott was much more law-abiding. Stiles tended to see the law as something to get around.

"Okay, fine," Stiles decided. "I know Deaton's schedule. He has a vet tech who works days when Scott's in school and he stays late twice a week when they're doing surgeries. They should be there until seven – they wait about three hours after the last surgery for the dogs to come out of the anesthesia and the owners to pick them up. He doesn't have a security system. I can get in and out before he comes home."

Jackson raised his eyebrows. "That's weirdly well thought out. How do you know he doesn't have a security system?"

Stiles shrugged. "The deputies talk a lot. I've had to sit around the station waiting for dad plenty of times. Plus, I checked the files."

"Okay, but we're taking your Jeep. I don't want my Porsche being seen anywhere near this."

Stiles winced because his Jeep was even better known to the deputies than Jackson's car. Derek's black Camaro wouldn't be any better, in fact worse considering the entire department were on the look-out for it. Not that he could imagine Derek lending him his car. Or even knew were Derek and it were for that matter.

Screw it, he'd pull off the road, pop the hood and say his baby had been coughing and cutting out. If it got back to his dad, he could say maybe it had been watery gas.

"In a perfect world, I'd've been able to get into the city planning office and check out the plans for the house," Stiles told Jackson as he took several back streets to Deaton's house, a nineteen-seventies ranch-style on a large lot. Rhododendrons flourished along a decrepit privacy fence in the backyard. There were no sidewalks in this part of town or street side parking.

"You're so weird," Jackson commented. "Why aren't we stopping here?"

Stiles crept the Jeep along to an intersection then turned. "Because we're going to park here."

Here was the open parking lot to a closed business, but there were two dilapidated trucks and an old Volkswagen Beetle in the lot with faded For Sale signs on them. The Jeep wouldn't stand out so much beside them.

"It's raining," Jackson complained when they got out.

It was more a of a half-hearted drizzle.

"I know. It's perfect," Stiles explained. "No one will want to be out in it, so we're less likely to be seen." It wasn't heavy enough to make them look crazy to be out in it, though.

"What if he has one of those doorbell cameras?"

Stiles dug into his backpack and pulled out two ski-masks he'd dug out of the snowboarding equipment in the attic. He'd been looking forward to this year. If it snowed enough at Mr. Shasta, he and Scott could have gone up there on a weekend now that he had the Jeep instead of depending on his Dad, who had been too busy all last year.

"That's what these are for." He handed the blue one to Jackson.

"This smells like McCall," Jackson complained.

"It's clean, I swear."

"Dumb ass doesn't wash out," Jackson insisted, but he pulled the cap on his head. Stiles gleefully imagined the hat head he'd have when he took it off. His own buzzcut wouldn't be affected at all.

Though his head did get cold. He hurriedly jammed his own cap on.

They crept into Deaton's backyard and once on his back porch, Stiles pulled out surgical gloves he'd nicked from Scott's mom and the key copy. He couldn't cross his fingers and use them at the same time, but he wanted to.

"This is going to work, it's going to work," he mumbled under his breath as he slid it into the lock. He could feel the fake key engage with the pins of the lock and held his breath that it wouldn't snap into pieces. _Open, open, open_ , he willed it, trying not to apply too much pressure.

It did. The lock opened after a slight resistance. Stiles barely kept himself from doing a fist pump.

"Okay, color me slightly impressed," Jackson said. "Slightly."

"Come on," Stiles urged him and darted inside. He felt a tingle over his skin, almost electric, but dismissed it.

Jackson didn't follow.

Stiles turned back. "What're you waiting for?"

"I can't," Jackson said with a weird sound to his voice.

"What?"

"There's something stopping me. I can't step inside."

"You're shitting me."

Jackson leaned into the open doorway and his upper body just stopped like he was leaning into a wall.

"Whoa," Stiles exclaimed. "That's cool."

"No, it's not," Jackson replied in annoyance.

"It's got to be some kind of magic. Scott said there's something in the clinic Deaton can use to keep him from going from the lobby into the back."

"Well, how do I get past it?"

"I don't know." Stiles jigged in place. "Just stay out here and listen for anyone coming and yell if they do, then run." He wasn't all that sure he'd trust to Jackson to warn him, but he couldn't think of anything else.

"Fine, just hurry."

Stiles felt weird and a little bad going through Deaton's house. The living room looked normal as did the kitchen. He peeked in the bathroom and even in the en suite attached to the master bedroom but didn't poke through them. He only glanced around the bedroom, but it was almost creepily spare: queen-sized bed with a rusty brown duvet, nightstands, and a highboy, all made of heavy dark wood. There was a built-in closet, a lamp, a rug on the floor and curtains. Nothing else, not a picture, not a knickknack, not even a book.

He was happy ranch-style houses in California didn't run to basements. He'd already broken one horror movie rule and separated from Jackson, going down into a basement alone would guarantee he ended up dead. Of course, he was working with one of the 'monsters', so maybe that gave him some immunity?

Life wasn't a horror movie anyway as his dad would remind him. Which was true. Hopefully, in real life, Stiles wouldn't do the stupidest possible thing _every_ time.

He struck gold with the next door. The spare bedroom had been converted into an office and library.

"Yes," he whispered excitedly.

He checked out what Deaton had on his desk first, but it was just an old-style accounts book, with lists of things with Latin names written into it in green ink. It looked like Deaton had recorded amounts and dates instead of costs. In different circumstances, Stiles would have been fascinated.

Trying to search methodically, Stiles started on one wall. There were so many books, he despaired of finding something useful among them all, until he spotted one with the Hale triskele stamped in gold on the spine.

He pulled it out and flipped it open. It was a Bestiary, but he'd bet it was more accurate than the crazy compendiums made by monks in the Middle Ages. The Hales, after all, were supernatural themselves. They had first-hand knowledge.

Stiles stuffed it in his backpack and then the slim volume next to it about Hunter families.

Most of Deaton's books were useless to him since they were in languages Stiles didn't read or in several cases even recognize.

He grabbed _Liber de arborum, fruticum et herbarum, Principia Opus De Magia,_ and _Compendium Supernaturale_. His gaze caught on _W_ _ilkołaki_ and Stiles stuffed it in with the others. His Polish wasn't fluent, but it was significantly better than his nonexistent Greek, Arabic or Sanskrit.

He headed to the other side of the room, managed to trip on the rug and grabbed onto the desk to keep from finishing his fall. Instead, he ended on his knees, hand wrapped around a drawer handle. The drawer had been locked, but Stiles' weight had yanked hard enough to break the lock.

Stile pulled himself to his feet and peered into the drawer. It was open now but Deaton had bothered to lock it, so of course he was going to look.

The drawer held a cloth-bound journal, several jars of purple and mauve powders, and a carved wooden cube. The cube sat on Stiles' palm, small enough he could close his fingers around it. The Hale triskele was inset with what looked like black opal on each face. On opposite sides were narrow holes, and between on top were three more spaced holes. If he curled his fingers around it, the tips lined up with the holes, but they were too narrow for any finger.

His eyes widened as he made the connection. Claws. The holes were for claws. This cube was a puzzle box only meant to be opened by a werewolf.

Stiles shoved the cube into his pocket, then on the theory that anything locked up was worth stealing, the jars and the journal.

A bang on the window made him nearly jump out of his shoes. Another followed and he realized it was a small rock. He peered out the window and saw Jackson.

"You need to get out of there, a car's pulling into the driveway," Jackson called with a wild glance toward the front of the house.

A sick surge of panic rushed through Stiles' limbs. He scrabbled at the window's lock, got it open and pushed up with a squeaky groan. He threw his backpack to Jackson and scrambled out, his pants catching on the shrubs planted along the side of the house.

Jackson caught his wrist and jerked him along so fast Stiles' wasn't sure his feet were hitting the ground as they ran. He was being boosted over the rhododendrons and the fence before he knew it. Jackson's strength made it feel like he was flying, right until he hit the ground on the other side.

"Ow, ow, ow," Stiles whined under his breath. Jackson vaulted over the fence after him. He'd landed on his hands and knees and both felt skinned raw.

"Come on, come on," Jackson exhorted.

"Why didn't you hear him before?" Stiles demanded as he got up and started running. "You were supposed to warn me!"

"I tried, you didn't hear me!"

Stiles realized he hadn't heard anything while he'd been Deaton's house.

"I couldn't even reach the window to knock on it." Jackson was annoyingly not out of breath. Stiles was already heaving. "Finally realized I could throw something through though, so I ran around and tossed rocks at all the windows until I spotted you."

Panting, Stiles admitted, "Not bad, Whittemore."

They were in the woods now and less than half a block from the Jeep if they cut through an empty lot and a drainage ditch. Jackson slowed down and Stiles gratefully did too. "Do you hear anyone behind us?"

"No," Jackson said. He stopped and cocked his head, looking back, and nodded. "No one behind us." He pulled off the ski mask and the gloves and shoved them into the outside pocket of Stile's backpack.

Stiles did the same and accepted the pack, slinging it over one shoulder.

"Then we just have to hope no one saw the Jeep."

"I take back anything I said about you being good at this."

"Hey!" Stiles protested, "I got in and out and you are decent look-out." Better than Scott would have been, he silently admitted to himself, though it felt like a betrayal.

"Well, I hope you got something useful."

"I think so."

"Okay."

"Lydia reads Latin, right?"

"Oh, God, you stole books you can't read?"

"Well, I can read the Polish one and there's always Google."

"Fine," Jackson said. He took out his phone. "Lydia. I'm bringing Stilinski to yours. We've got books that might help."

Stiles gaped at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He'd never even imagined just going straight to Lydia. He'd had dreams of being invited to her house, maybe picking her up for a date, but they'd been fantasies. And none of his fantasies ever included Jackson, unless it was of him experiencing some humiliating accident.

"Don't just stand there, Stilinski. I'm getting wet."

~~~

Lydia raised her eyebrows when they set the Latin volumes in front her. "Excuse me?"

Jackson rolled his eyes. "Give it a rest, Lydia. I know you're smart. I know you not only know Latin, you taught yourself the old-fashioned version for shits and giggles. I'm not as smart as you, but I'm not stupid. I notice things." He paused and smiled, a real smile that Stiles had never seen from him before, at her. "I notice you."

Stiles sighed then. He'd accepted it before, but now he saw it: Lydia and Jackson genuinely cared about each other. Not the images they presented to the world, but the real people underneath. And he, though he'd thought he saw the real Lydia because he realized she was smart, didn't. His image of Lydia hadn't been any more the real her than the ditzy high school queen bee was.

Even if it had been, so what? That didn't give him a right to her affections. She might even have considered it an invasion that he pushed for more than she was willing to give out, tried to make her reveal sides of herself she considered only her own.

Aw, fuck, he thought, was this being _mature?_ Because it sucked, even if the last months had affected him so much that he didn't know if he'd want to date Lydia any longer.

He opened his mouth and closed it, then did it again, before he manned up and asked, "Lydia? Did my crush on you creep you out?"

Jackson sneered a little. "You're only figuring it out now?"

Lydia tapped a perfect fingernail on the cover of the volume on plants and herbs. "Yes. You wouldn't take no for an answer. You didn't respect my right to choose who I want to be with and even if I had been interested in you, that is a disturbing attitude that would have turned me off."

His face flushed fever hot as everything he'd ever thought about or said to Lydia ran through his mind, but the way it would have felt being her. It wasn't good. No wonder she'd ignored him like he didn't exist.

"I – okay, it's not your responsibility to educate me, I get that," Stiles said. "Wow. I was – " He sucked in a deep breath. "I wish someone had made me understand before."

"No, it isn't my responsibility to teach boys that they don't have rights to me," Lydia said steadily.

He wondered if he would have heard it even if someone had tried to tell him what he was doing wrong a couple of months ago. Scott sure wasn't listening to anyone.

"I won't do it anymore," Stiles promised. Saying sorry didn't help; changing how he acted would. Maybe not with Lydia, but if he remembered this and didn't act the same with someone else, that would help. "But I am sorry."

"You're not infatuated with me any longer," Lydia said. She pursed her lips. "Is it because of the scars or the screaming, because I'm not your perfect fantasy any longer?"

"You're still perfect," Stiles stated staunchly. "Even if my crush was on this picture of you that I had in my head? It wasn't just a picture of you being pretty. Besides, you still are."

"God, does this mean you're not going to smell like a boner around my girlfriend all the time?" Jackson asked.

"Nope, just means I won't think she should care about my boners," Stiles replied cheekily.

Lydia sighed. "I don't want to hear about either of your boners. Male anatomy is ridiculous. Shut up and start going through one of these books. I want to know what happened when Peter Hale bit me exactly, because I am clearly not a werewolf or dead. If I'm a banshee, I want to know what that means."

Stiles picked up the Polish book on werewolves. "Maybe this one will have something about the Bite."

"It would be nice if we could talk to a werewolf that knows about being a werewolf," Lydia complained.

"There's Derek, but thanks to Scott, he's on the run. I haven't seen him… " Stiles thought about it. "I haven't seen him since that fake CBI investigator tried to kill him at the station."

"I have," Jackson said.

"Wh – what? How? Why? When?" Stiles blurted.

"He's my alpha. I know where he's staying. He's still training me."

"I told him to learn everything he would," Lydia said in a bored tone.

"And he did?"

"Yeah," Jackson said. "He told us as much as he knows, but it's not much. He's reaching out to another pack he knows, though, it's just hard to figure anything out through so many intermediaries."

"But he's okay?" Stiles asked. "Do you have his number? I need his number. In case of crazy-cakes Kate or whatever."

"Do you work at being a moron?"

"Hey, she's psycho scary and you know it. Plus, there's our new principal. Who makes my skin crawl."  

"Argents." Jackson sounded dismissive, but he could afford to. He was the golden boy of the school, not the screw-up. Though if Gerard Argent had a clue Jackson was a beta, it wouldn't save him.

"There's something very off about how he's taken over," Lydia commented.

"He worries me too. A lot," Stiles said.

Scott didn't worry and that worried Stiles too. If he'd join Derek's pack like Jackson, at least he'd have someone in the know and on his side besides Stiles. Stiles had never really been in a position of trying to convince Scott of something important when Scott had already made up his mind and he wasn't enjoying it. Logic just bounced off the forcefield of _'Allison Allison Allison'_ and Scott's determination that being a werewolf was bad, all werewolves were bad, and his resentment of anyone in authority.

Maybe being in the pack wouldn't make Scott any safer, but he'd know more, and Stiles was a big proponent of knowledge is power.

Scott could have had back-up. A pack. Stiles didn't really understand why he didn't want it, other than his sole experience of an alpha was Peter. But, while Derek had been a dick, he'd also gone out of his way to help Scott over and over. Scott's problem with Derek went deeper than his traumatic introduction to being a werewolf. Stiles had tried to get him to talk about it, but Scott would just get mulish and mutter about Derek being a jerk and then start talking about how he'd ruined his life and the Argents would never let him date Allison because of him.

Telling Scott that the Argents wanted Allison to kill him not date him, because they were a bunch of hatemongering fanatics, hadn't made any difference.

Besides, Derek hadn't had anything to do with Allison breaking up with Scott.

That was all Scott lying to her.

Stiles thought Allison had made it clear enough she'd be with Scott if she wanted to be, whatever her parents thought, and either way it had nothing to do with Derek. Derek hadn't bitten Scott. He hadn't made the Argents werewolf hunters. He'd warned Scott about them, even saved his ungrateful ass on occasion, but logic and Scott remained estranged.

Stiles knew why Jackson had joined Derek, too. Jackson hated every second of Scott's newfound athletic prowess. If he was going to be a werewolf, he didn't want to just be equal to Scott in strength. He wanted to be stronger. It made sense that he'd throw in with Derek. Jackson wanted to lead, but even more he wanted to be part of something.

"Anyway, Derek's been showing me and the others – "

_"Others?"_ Stiles squeaked. "What others?"

"The other betas," Jackson replied.

"He _bit_ someone else!?" Stiles shrieked.

"Lower your voice," Lydia said in a bored voice.

"But – but – but – "

"He asked," Jackson snapped.

"He says – "

"I was there."

"What?"

"He wanted them to talk to me about being a bitten and he wanted me to know he wasn't like Peter. Transparency. The Bite is a gift, blah blah blah."

Stiles was angry, but at the same time he knew he didn't really have a right to be. Derek had told him he would need more betas, but Stiles had conveniently forgotten that. He felt like Derek should have warned him but wasn't sure when since the last time they saw each other was at the police station. It wasn't exactly something you left a voicemail or texted. _Gonna bite some people. Smilyface_. He was thinking like Scott. He shouldn't expect Derek to think and feel and act like a human being. Which was as stupid as expecting a wolf to act like a dog. They might look alike, but they weren't. Derek had instincts and motivations that were alien to Stiles.

That was what made him so disturbing sometimes. Derek looked perfectly human but didn't quite act like one. Which landed him squarely in the uncanny valley.

"Fine, whatever," Stiles said sullenly.

"We're meeting tonight," Jackson mentioned. "You should come."

"Why?"

"Same reason I'm coming," Lydia said. "You're in this, whether you want to be or not. Unless you want to find another dismembered body somewhere?"

The wet red memory of the gas station attendant – the remains – rushed back to the front of his thoughts, the fetid mixture of viscera and blood threatening to make Stiles throw up. He'd somehow kept himself from vomiting at the scene, but he'd emptied his stomach convulsively later, when he was home.

They had to stop whoever had done that. Even Peter's murders hadn't been that twisted, and his victims had been anything but random or innocent.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed.

"Can we get back to the books, so we have something useful to contribute tonight?" Lydia asked.

Stiles glanced over and saw she'd been reading while he and Jackson talked.

Jeez, he and Jackson had _talked_. And Jackson had helped him out. And now he was sitting at the dining room table in Lydia's mom's McMansion with her and not even hyperventilating. The fact that Scott wasn't with him and had refused to help him only made it even more surreal.

Two hours later they had some possibilities and helpful information. Rowan, aka Mountain Ash, would stop werewolves and most other supernatural creatures. Burning it made it more powerful, like burning wolfsbane made it a cure. Probably what kept Jackson out of Deaton's house. It was usually reduced to a black powder finer than sawdust and laid down in lines. On its own and as wood it reduced their strength down to human, but when used by a magic worker it could do a lot more, including trap a werewolf inside a circle created through the sheer will of the worker.

There were other herbs and plants that did things too. Wolfsbane was obvious – and what those purple powders were – but mistletoe was also a strong poison to werewolves. Kitsune were vulnerable to a powdered lichen, not to mention weird ass shadowy spirit things called Oni, though the books were a little confusing – it sounded like they could command Oni too.

"Japanese demons are a thing," Stiles said flatly. He suddenly wondered if this was why Derek lacked inflection so often. So much in the supernatural side was so batshit weird that the ability to question, never mind be surprised, got burned out. "You think Kira knows anything about them?"

"I think we should worry more about the thing killing people here," Lydia pointed out.

"Well, how do we know it's not a Japanese demon?"

"Don't' be contrary."

They found more on banshees too. Wailing women. Bean Sidhe. There were plenty of different names for the same archetype, a woman who screamed for important deaths.

Lydia had come out of her coma wailing about someone dying. The doctors had assumed she was reliving Peter's attack, but Lydia was just as certain someone else died at that moment. Stiles compared the time of death for the gas station attendant and Lydia's purloined medical chart. She had screamed in the same window of time as the estimated time of death for poor Briggs.

"Banshee," Lydia said decisively.

"I was right," Stiles crowed.

Lydia rolled her eyes.

He got back to business. "October 11, Briggs," Stiles listed. "October 13, the homeless guy; November 11, Harris."

She nodded.

"Why just for them?" Stiles wondered.

"You want her to scream more?" Jackson demanded angrily. His staunch support of Lydia contrasted with Stiles' automatic reflex to contradict or correct everyone.

"People die every day," Lydia pointed out. "It's a valid question."

"So, you don't just scream for death." Stiles gnawed on the corner of his thumbnail. "That's good, but what's the criteria? Natural or unnatural deaths? There was a pile-up on Highway 99 last week with casualties."

"No scream," Lydia confirmed.

"So not death per se… " Stiles frowned. "Though we don't know what your range or sensitivity is. Or if a car accident counts as natural causes for that matter. I mean, is there a reason to think supernatural criteria is the same as legal? Like, do you scream for manslaughter as well as first degree murder… ?"

Lydia and Jackson were both staring at him.

"What?"

"Look at who I've screamed for and it's obvious," Lydia said. "I scream when it's a supernatural death, killer or possibly victim."

"Oh."

"It can't be for all murders, since around one thousand four hundred forty murders occur every twenty-four hours, one every sixty seconds, which means a banshee would be screaming non-stop," Lydia explained. "Now, you're probably right that I have a range of sensitivity that would preclude that, but it's still too much."

"Yikes, you can pull the numbers out of your head just like that?"

"You're not the only one who does research and I have an excellent memory."

They took a break and Jackson ordered enough Chinese too feed the Chinese Army – from the good Chinese place, not the one where you played Russian Roulette with enterobacteria with every order – then ate most of it. Stiles felt reluctantly impressed. He'd seen Scott eat massive amounts since becoming a werewolf, but he didn't compare. Of course, Scott (or Scott's mom) couldn't afford to order the entire menu either.

He found the answer after they ate, in the Polish book on werewolves. When he'd read it a third time, he painstakingly translated it for Lydia (and Jackson, who read over her shoulder).

"A kanima," Lydia said.

"Never heard of it," Jackson commented.

"They would be rare," Lydia told him. She glanced from the page in the book to Stiles' translation. "You're sure this is accurate?"

"As sure as I can be. I didn't go word for word, but that's got everything the book says, written out so it makes sense in English."

She pursed her lips, then looked at Jackson. "It's not me or you or Scott."

"It's not the other betas," he said. "They're all wolves."

Stiles slapped the book closed.

"Then either Derek's bitten someone else you don't know about – "

"Or Peter did," Lydia finished.

~~~

Erica cocked her head as two different vehicles approached the train depot. She recognized deep purr of Jackson's Porsche. The noisy, uneven rattle of the other vehicle wasn't immediately familiar, but she guessed it was Stiles' Jeep, because she couldn't imagine any hunters driving something that was one cough away from literally blowing a gasket.

"Company," she sang out.

Isaac might have been bitten before her, but not enough to have any better grasp of his enhanced senses. Boyd just wouldn't say anything.

Derek had already heard and identified the cars and probably whoever was in them, which did turn out to be Jackson and Stiles. Lydia was with them, mincing her way inside with a sneer at the less than luxurious surroundings. He raised an eyebrow at her and Stiles but didn't shift from the scrounged chair he occupied or say anything.

They were carrying paper bags that smelled fabulously of food, though.

"We brought Mexican!" Stiles announced as if every werewolf didn't already know.

Lydia had her arms full too, but in her case, it was books. "Also, answers and questions," she said. "Ever heard of a kanima?" she asked Derek directly.

Erica wasn't sure how she felt about Lydia 'Bitch of Beacon Hills' Martin horning into their pack. She'd liked being the only girl, the hot girl, for once. Even if Derek had tensed hard as a steel beam when she tried kissing him, then tossed her away in a nearly insulting, nearly bruising delayed reaction. It was just a damn shame someone who looked like him wasn't interested, but Erica could see and smell that he wasn't responding to Lydia's seductive moves either.

Or Jackson, who wasn't above flirting for what he wanted, though what he could want when he had every damn thing, baffled Erica.

"How did you hear of it?" Derek asked curiously.

Lydia lifted the books in her arms. "Stiles and Jackson acquired some references."

"Those smell like Deaton."

"I borrowed them," Stiles said. His heart did a tricky stutter and Erica guessed 'borrowed' like 'acquired' meant something more like 'stole'. For a Sheriff's kid, Stiles was a little shit. Or maybe because he was the Sheriff's kid? She couldn't guess if he was acting out or that sure his father would always cover for him.

"And does Deaton know you borrowed them?"

Stiles' face did that rubbery thing where he cycled through a half dozen reactions on fast forward. It was a little gross and sort of hilarious. "Maybe? Maybe not? He can't prove it… I don't think." He blinked at Derek. "Do you care?"

Derek gave him a blank look back, then rolled his shoulders. "No."

"Well then," Stiles said and ended with a 'ta-da!' gesture.

Derek ignored him and took the books from Lydia, placing them on an industrial worktable they'd cleaned up. The depot was a stopgap, he'd explained; abandoned by the city and the railroad, large and isolated enough to provide them a place to hide out and even practice shifting and fighting as individuals and a pack.

The depot had running water and Derek had brought in a generator as well as battery lamps and a gas camping stove. It wasn't exactly glamping, but it was fine for the moment.

The Preserve had too much attention for them to use for now; hunters were trespassing nightly, riddling it with traps meant for werewolves. Isaac had shyly asked if the traps would catch regular people too and Derek laughed, dry and unamused, before confirming the hunters didn't care.

The bastard hunters were all fucking hypocrites, Erica thought. They wanted to do something, so they made up an excuse to do it and didn't care if they contradicted their own rationale. Teeth and claws and the instinct to chase were at least honest.

She loved being a werewolf, even with the drawbacks of hunters and the full moon and wolfsbane out there. She'd gone through her life in a halftone haze between her epilepsy and the medications for it. Now she was alive in a full color world, more alive than almost anyone else. That was worth any danger.

The depot wasn't that bad anyway. Cold didn't bother her any longer and werewolf vision meant it was never too dark. Moreover, she had the rest of the pack when they were there. Pack made everything better. Once the hunters gave up and Derek could buy a better place, they could be comfortable. Safe was more important for now.

The food was passed around and everyone ate. Erica sucked sauce off her fingers unselfconsciously, because Casa Pollo's sauce was just that good, and accepted the wet wipe Lydia produced from her purse with a shrug. Lydia ate almost as enthusiastically as the werewolves, which surprised Erica. She managed to do it without even smearing her lipstick, which was impressive in ways the guys wouldn't get. Erica determined to ask her what brand mascara she used, because Lydia's liner and lashes were never smeared or clumped even after gym.

Derek and Stiles probably ate the least. Stiles claimed he was still full of Chinese food and Derek always had a small serving and let everyone else gorge. Erica thought it was a werewolf, alpha thing because she almost couldn't make herself eat before him and the others were the same.

"Why a kanima?" Derek asked Lydia and Stiles when the various containers were down to crumbs and smears (or in Stiles' case a tiny whole pepper he'd bitten into then gasped and moaned and fanned at his open mouth after spitting it out).

"It fits everything we know," Lydia stated. She pointed to one of the books. "Stiles' translation says it's the product of a werewolf bite gone wrong. It kills by rending its victims with its claws and it has a paralytic venom."

Derek didn't give away much. His heartbeat didn't even pick up, but he watched Lydia with wary interest. "Peter bit you the same night as he turned Jackson. According to everything I knew, the bite should either turn you or kill you – and it's terrible." His chemo-signals matched the flare of sorrow on his face.

"You know that for a fact?" Lydia asked.

"That it's always those two things? No," Derek answered. "I'm twenty-two, I wasn't interested in our lore or taught as many secrets as Laura when I was fourteen and fifteen. After that there was no one to teach me more. But I've seen a bite rejection."

He'd told Erica about it. A girl who had been bitten and died. He'd said the pain was terrible, that it poisoned her, made her convulse and cry, that it turned her blood black and it ran from her eyes and ears and mouth and nose. Erica assumed it ran from everywhere else too, considering her own experience of convulsions.

Maybe that should have terrified her, but the epilepsy was killing her anyway, her episodes had been increasing with every year. They hit her each month; nothing helped. She'd never drive or hold a job or have a child or even go on a normal date, she wasn't even going to finish high school. The Bite had offered better odds and ultimate results than the radical brain surgery that her parents' insurance wouldn't cover anyway.

Derek had told Boyd and Isaac too.

Jackson looked a little surprised though, but that made sense when Erica remembered it had been Derek's crazy uncle who turned him and Scott. She guessed his uncle hadn't been the fan of informed consent Derek was.

He'd bitten Lydia too, but of course Lydia Martin was too special to be another werewolf or a casualty.

"Yeah, we found something about that too," Stiles said eagerly. "Lydia's been screaming every time someone is killed. I mean, at the time of death, so firstly, she's totally alibied as far as being the kanima, and secondly she's a banshee."

Derek raised his eyebrows at her.

Lydia shrugged. "It fits."

"You weren't aware of being supernatural?" he asked.

"It's probably a recessive, but it could be a side effect of my body's immune-response to the lycanthropic infection," she said. "I don't know much about any of my family on my mother's side. The Martins are well documented and quite mundane."

"Or it could be like the x-gene and you mutated because it was life or death," Stiles said enthusiastically.

Lydia leveled him a scornful look while Erica smothered a giggle. "We are not in a Marvel comic," she snapped. "Genetics, biology and physiology do not work like that."

"Yeah, I don't think even Vertigo ever got as bloody," Stiles agreed. "Even before DC took over."

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled heavily. "There are no mutants," he gritted out. "And werewolves are more than people who are 'infected' with something. We're supernatural – "

"Magic," Lydia interrupted. "Any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic. That doesn't make it magic. Science may not have a complete explanation for lycanthropy or banshees or magic, but that means only that it is currently insufficient, not that it is incapable." She looked fierce for the first time. "It can be studied, it can be codified, and eventually it can be explained."

"That's fine, but right now we have to deal with the results. Whether the thing killing people is a kanima or something else, it has to be stopped."

"How?" Isaac asked.

Boyd didn't say anything, but he was listening. Boyd stayed quiet and heard everything and kept his thoughts to himself, then made his decision, just the way he had about the Bite. His presence in the pack bond was the solid ground beneath their feet.

Jackson was waiting for Lydia. He'd do what she said, probably even if Derek told him differently.

"All I remember about kanima are some stories we were told as kids," Derek said. "They're driven to take vengeance by killing for whoever becomes their master. They're a creature with a crippled sense of self. Someone who has already been taken over by someone, so when they turn, they can't settle into who they are. Instead, their shape reflects what they think they are, a monster. "

"If we have a kanima, does that mean we have a master out there too?" Stiles asked.

Derek nodded. "I think that's how it works. It was an old story, supposed to scare us kids into accepting the wolf and the shift when we old enough. A warning not to want to be human too much. If you don't turn into a wolf, you'll turn into a kanima and have to do what some human says."

"Is the master always human?" Lydia pounced on what he'd said.

"I don't know."

She hmphed her dissatisfaction and crossed her arms.

"You haven't bitten anyone else?" Stiles asked in a thready but determined voice.

It earned him a glare from Derek. "No."

"Just – "

"There's a reason you ask before you bite," Derek snapped. "So something like a kanima or even just a really unsuitable wolf doesn't happen. Teenagers have better survival rates and consent is supposed to make rejection less likely too."

"Oh. So you're not just biting teenagers because they're the only people you know in Beacon Hills," Stiles sneered.

"I lived here until six years ago," _you idiot_ , "I know plenty of people in Beacon Hills. Most of them would be worse wolves than Scott, even if they wanted it," Derek said. "They have spouses and kids and jobs now. It would be harder for them, even if it worked. Most of them wouldn't gain anything they need."

He began picking up empty cartons and piling them into one of the bags. They had a heavy dumpster outside one of the other depot buildings where they were stashing their garbage.

Derek was strict about mess, especially food, that could draw vermin. Not to mention their noses could be temporarily burnt out by too much stench. Though Erica had noticed she didn't respond to smells the same way she had before the bite. She could smell so much, and it told her so much it was more like hearing or even sight now. Even stuff that she would have found gag-worthy before was just so full of information, she was so busy processing it all that she didn't have brain-driven reactions anymore. Poisons and toxins made her recoil, but decay or mold or shit was just information; it couldn't hurt her.

That change in the way they thought weirded Isaac out. Maybe Jackson too, she wasn't sure. Boyd hadn't expressed any opinion. But Erica was rolling with it. So, what if she didn't react or think entirely like a human being any longer? She'd made the decision to leave that behind; she'd never been 'normal' anyway. No loss, in her opinion.

Derek dumped everything into a garbage can. They'd bag it and take it to the dumpster later.

He dusted off his hands habitually and frowned.

"Okay, so it wasn't you," Stiles said. "That means it had to be Peter."

Derek's shoulders tensed.

"He bit McCall, he bit me, and he clawed Jackson," Lydia listed. "Is that everyone?"

"He could have bit half of Beacon Hills, there's no way Derek could know," Stiles pointed out.

"I think we'd know if he'd bit many others. Most of them would have made a police report or at least gone to the emergency room for stitches. And if they rejected, we'd have more bodies," Derek said.

"But he must have bit someone else," Lydia insisted.

"What about… ?" Jackson started.

"What?"

"Can we figure out who it is from who has been killed?"

"You mean like the FBI is trying to do?" Stiles asked. "That's profiling, dude. Though… we've got a step up on them since we know who Peter killed and why and can remove them from the equation… That's not a bad idea."

"Can you get the files on the victims?" Derek asked.

"Um. I can try, but… I'm not a good enough hacker to get by the FBI's firewalls and Dad's been keeping everything at the office since they got here."

"Come on, Stilinski, you did a B&E today, you're telling us you can't sneak into your dad's office?" Jackson taunted.

"Hey, you were there too!"

"I didn't go inside."

"Doesn't matter, you're still a material accomplice."

"You rat me out, I will end you!"

"Enough!" Derek yelled, just enough alpha command in it to shut everyone up. He pointed at Stiles. "Try to get what you can – without being caught." He turned to Lydia. "Look into the kanima and how to stop it. I don't remember enough about the stories. I'm going to contact the person I asked about the bite not turning you, they may know more about banshees and the kanima. If there's a way to help you with this, we'll find it."

Erica glanced at Boyd in surprise. Boyd looked quietly pleased. Stiles was wide-eyed, but Lydia was the one who seemed shocked. "What?" she asked.

"Maybe you would have come into banshee abilities anyway," Derek said, "but Peter did this to you. You shouldn't have to deal with it alone. Like I told Jackson, you aren't my Bite, but you are what you are because of a Hale. That means you have a place in my pack if you want it. My help even if you don't want to be pack, like Scott."

"Safety in numbers," Isaac whispered.

Derek brushed his hand over Isaac's hunched shoulders. "We have each other's backs."

"I'll think about it," Lydia declared. "If you can get any books on banshees or other resources, that I will accept."

"All right."

"Jackson," she said, clearly expecting him to leave as she was done, since he was her driver.

"Everyone be careful," Derek said. "Werewolves aren't immune to kanimas – the stories were pretty clear on that."

"I've got to go home," Isaac muttered. He'd told them just enough for Erica to guess his dad was a violent piece of shit. She wished Isaac would stay with Derek, but his father would notice and probably go to the police like the utter asshole he was. Isaac still had to go to school, so they'd find him. It sucked, she really wished that they could scare Wesley Lahey so bad he left town.

She had a list of people who needed that treatment.

Her parents were so exhausted with her health problems, they just accepted it when Erica said she was feeling better since her last hospital stay. The doctors had told them she wasn't going to live much longer the way things had been going. Maybe they just wanted her to have some fun while she could. She suspected they just didn't care much anymore; she was too much work.

Boyd's parents were worse, though. Not that they were violent. They were oblivious. Since his little sister disappeared, Boyd just didn't matter to them. It was like he'd stopped existing. He hadn't need to be a werewolf, but he needed to be pack.

She wished they could all just leave Beacon Hills. Leave the kanima and the hunters and all the shitty people to have it. Fuck them all. Territory couldn't be worth it.

"You should all go home," Derek told them.

He touched each of them, even Jackson, before they left, and it was nice. Her parents never touched Erica anymore nor anyone at school. For years it had just been nurses and the occasional doctor or tech when she ended up in the hospital. Now she got to hug Isaac and ruffle his hair and plaster herself against Boyd in Stiles' horrible rattletrap Jeep when he offered them a ride.

She felt bad about leaving Derek behind, alone in the depot. Erica determined she was going to bring more things to make it homey at least. Blankets and pillows and more lanterns – she'd already discovered Derek did not like tea lights or pillar candles or anything with a flame – and sofas they could all cuddle up on. They needed a TV and a game system too. She sucked at video games because she'd never been able to handle the flashing edits, but now she was determined to become good at them.

They needed a mini-fridge too and some rugs. She'd hit Derek up for the money to get some stuff at the next meeting. In the meantime, she'd raid the linen closet and attic at home.

~~~

Derek waited until everyone was gone beyond hearing range before sitting down and dropping his face into his hands.

The claws of an alpha were as magical as their fangs and the wounds they inflicted took longer than any others to heal. When the claws came out to kill very few humans survived a real werewolf attack, fewer still the attack of an alpha werewolf, who if they meant to turn someone used their teeth.

But it happened on occasion.

Even more rarely, being clawed by an alpha could turn someone.

It wasn't so rare as a kanima, but Derek damned himself for not thinking of it before.

His little pack hadn't processed those truths, despite Jackson turning from Peter's claws. Stiles and the others were fixated on someone who had been bit.

Peter had clawed Kate open with every intention of killing her, but she was alive. She'd survived. Derek had glimpsed her around town in the last week, caught her scent on the wind in the Preserve when he checked on the ruins of his house. The reek of perfume and wolfsbane and gunpowder on her had obscured any changes to her scent.

He'd thought she'd gotten lucky or Peter hadn't cut as deeply as it had seemed, that the Argents had got her medical care in time, and at worst, she had new scars to hate his kind for inflicting.

He had thought, if he'd thought at all, that if Kate had turned, she would have followed the hunter's code and killed herself. But Kate had already proven she didn't care about the code.

And Kate would never, ever be able to accept becoming a werewolf, the thing she hated most in the world.

Kate was the kanima.

 

**~~~November 13, 2012~~~**

**Solar Eclipse**

**Dark of the Moon**

 

They split, teaming with deputies, to interview Adrian Harris' colleagues. It wasn't usual, but Hotch wanted everyone on record before they started talking to each other. The school board would go into CYA protocol as soon as they recovered from the shock and likely tell the teachers to watch what they said.

JJ watched Hotch win the staring contest with Principal Argent without so much as a twitch. It was always impressive when Hotch let the reins slip enough that his innate authority rolled over someone. He didn't like raising his voice or resorting to intimidation. He hated losing his temper. JJ hadn't been a profiler yet when she first met Hotch, but she'd formulated her own theories. Someone in Hotch's family had been violent and he controlled himself ruthlessly out of fear he would become that person.

Hotch and the Sheriff peeled off to talk to Beverley, the Principal's secretary. Argent looked like he was grinding the enamel of his teeth.

"This is very disruptive," he complained.

"We could take you and everyone down to the station instead," Sheriff Stilinski offered just as sourly.

Argent waved them off. "Go ahead." JJ hid a cringe. His skin had a jaundiced tinge that emphasized the cadaverous look he had. He made the hairs on her forearms stand up and all her instincts flare to life, ill or not, and she was quite sure the man was sick.

"Thank you so much," Stilinski replied.

Argent sulked back into his office. Mrs. Wallender rolled her eyes.

Morgan and Reid took Mr. Finstock who coached the lacrosse team as well as teaching Economics. JJ breathed a small sigh of relief and Rossi laughed silently her, but the man's crazed hair and over-large eyes did not contribute to a feeling of confidence in his educational abilities. After this she was going to have Garcia do a deep background check on every one of Henry's teachers when he started school.

She had to laugh as Finstock leaned close to Reid, peered at him, then poked his chest, saying loudly, "You don't fool me. You've been cutting class for the last month!" He then eyed Morgan and asked, "You ever play lacrosse?"

"He's a lunatic," Mr. Yukimura commented from beside her. "Apparently he coaches winning teams, though."

Chief Deputy Graeme choked. "This town and lacrosse. It's bizarre."

JJ liked Tara Graeme. She was happy Hotch had paired them. Emily was stuck with a baby-faced newbie named Parrish. The guy was an Iraq vet, but he still looked shiny to JJ. She was afraid she'd try to straighten his hair or something mom-like. Henry had wiped out any cool factor she'd had from being a bad ass FBI agent; since having him, she found herself mothering everyone younger than her. It was particularly hilarious when she recognized Hotch doing the same thing; she thought sometimes that being a parent rewired your brain.

But then she'd remember so many of the parents the BAU had encountered who had destroyed their children. They encountered people JJ privately thought were evil, but often they weren't the killers, they were the ones who made them. When that happened, Hotch was the best at dealing with it, better than Gideon had been. He never failed to pity the people they had to stop.

JJ thought that was why Gideon had had to go finally. He'd run out of the strength it took to empathize with the monsters.

Rossi and Deputy Clark were given the task of talking with the guidance counsellor who also doubled as the French teacher, Ms. Morrell.

"Okay if we do this in my classroom?" Yukimura asked.

"That'll work," JJ said.

Yukimura seemed more at ease with them than anyone else. JJ asked about that.

He coughed and closed the door, turning the lock so no one would walk in on them. JJ saw Tara raise an eyebrow. "I don't want Argent lurking at the door," Yukimura explained. "Or any of the kids… but mostly Argent."

"Okay."

Yukimura sat down at a student's desk, silently communicating that he was ceding control of the room to JJ and Tara. Most men would have taken the seat at their desk.

"I don't know how much help I can offer," he said, "since I only started teaching here this year."

"Well, sometimes an outsider sees things everyone else has stopped noticing," JJ encouraged him. She held her phone up. "I'm going to go ahead and record this."

Yukimura chuckled. "In that case." He shook his head. "My name's Ken Yukimura. My wife's name is Noshiko. My daughter Kira is a student at this school. I teach American History here. And if I could afford to, I'd quit. Principal Thomas hired me. I'm sure Argent would be happy to accept my resignation. I won't give him the satisfaction."

"Why?"

Yukimura glanced at Tara. "Wrong eyes, wrong color, wrong attitude? Take your pick." He glanced at JJ. "I imagine he'd find you acceptable."

Ugh. That made JJ's skin crawl. At the same time, she was an experienced profiler and agent and she recognized when someone was curating the truth. Yukimura wasn't lying, but he was presenting what he knew in a way designed to influence JJ and Tara.

Which was something everyone did to some extent. There was no such thing as 'just the facts, nothing but the facts'. In the BAU, you learned that everything existed in context.

Tara's expression hardened. "One of those."

"You know that thing the kids say? Haters gonna hate? That's the scariest thing in the world," he said. "I was a professor in New York. I moved my family here to research a book on an internment camp that was established here during World War II. My wife knew about it; her family was kept there."

He glared at the door like Argent was behind it and behind imprisoning his wife's family over sixty-five years before.

They were here to find out about Adrian Harris, but JJ let Yukimura navigate to that at his own pace. Steering interviewees could cost them hearing critical details. They didn't know what might prove to be key information until it was revealed, after all.

"I suppose that's all irrelevant. You want to know about Harris." He didn't bother hiding his disgust. "He was a despicable excuse for a teacher in my opinion. Oh, he knew chemistry, he could even teach it, but he bullied his students. He misused his authority and every teacher here knows it. No one was willing to speak up. I sent a letter to the school board after Principal Argent laughed my concerns off."

He met JJ's gaze. "I didn't know him long enough to want him dead, but that might be because my daughter wasn't subject to one of his classes."

"You think a parent might have killed him?" JJ asked.

"Parent, spouse, student, relative, another teacher, ex-student, random stranger with impulse control deficiency exposed to him for ten minutes," Yukimura said. "Sorry, as I said, I've only been here since the first of this school year. I know he gave Scott McCall a lot of detention and his friend the Stilinski boy even more. Several times he tried to get me or one of the other teachers to over-see them when he didn't want to stick around."

"I'm sure that made him popular in the teacher's lounge," Tara quipped, neatly sidestepping the question of the Sheriff's son having a motive to kill the man he found dead.

Yukimura agreed, "As you can imagine."

"And the last time you saw him?" JJ asked.

"Yesterday at lunch."

"Was he acting normally? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"This whole town is… but Harris. He was his dickish self, but maybe turned up a notch or two, like he was nervous. Twitchy? In the looking forward to something way." Yukimura held up empty hands. "No idea about what."

"Did he give anyone detention yesterday?"

"Huh. No."

"Could he have had plans to meet someone?"

"You mean a date?" Yukimura clarified with an amused tone. "Certainly. But it isn't something he would have confided to me or anyone else here." A wicked twinkle accompanied his conclusion, "And good luck finding anyone who would admit they dated him."

~~~

"Well, someone did at least once," Rossi said when JJ brought them up to date on her interviews. "Harris was divorced."

"He seems to have been universally despised by the other teachers," Emily said.

"And we already knew he was universally hated by his students," Reid added.

"He'd been teaching for eleven years," Hotch said. His head was tipped forward so he could read through a sheaf of papers.

"Do you mean he'd been teaching long enough to make a lot of people dislike him or that teaching that long made him into someone people disliked?" Tara, who was sitting in, asked cheekily.

Hotch looked up. The corner of his mouth twitched, the only way he'd give away that he was amused.

Morgan was willing to be amused, chuckling and eyeing the deputy with approval. JJ rolled her eyes at him. Maybe more than approval. She liked Tara, but Morgan could keep a lid on any flirting. They didn't need a cat fight with Garcia going for Tara' eyes or her credit rating. Or worse, Garcia getting sad. She was used to her long-time crush being a dog, but not at work.

Morgan winced and forgot his warm smile, looking instead at Emily in betrayal. She must have kicked him under the table. Emily had a mean kick to go with her right hook.

"Mrs. Wallander provided a great deal of background information on the victim, former and current colleagues and the students," Hotch said. He was ignoring the by-play, not oblivious to it. JJ knew: Hotch saw all.

"But nothing that screamed this is the killer," Rossi commented.

"No."

"She was insistent that there is something off about how Argent took over as principal and that Thomas, the man before him, had no plans to take a sabbatical. He left on a Friday and never came back, with Argent appearing on Monday. She'd tried calling Thomas and all he's done is evade."

"Hinky HR shit isn't really our wheelhouse," Morgan pointed out.

"You're just freaked out by Coach Finstock." Reid rarely teased, but everyone enjoyed the way Morgan groaned and covered his face with one hand.

"That guy is… " Morgan didn't seem to have a word for Finstock.

"Cray-cray," Reid suggested, prompting everyone to laugh.

"Everyone in town knows," Tara offered. "But oddly it doesn't seem to affect his success teaching the kids. They still like him after they graduate. My brother said Finstock gave him a real edge when he took Econ in college."

"He had a few interesting things to say about Harris," Reid said.

"I'm not entirely sure who he was talking about. He kept calling him Parris," Morgan grumbled.

Reid straightened his papers. Looking down, he said, "Morgan, he was screwing with you."

"What – ? No."

"You'd already dismissed him in your mind. You weren't paying attention. He had very cogent answers to my questions."

"Don't piss off the witness, Agent Morgan," Rossi reminded with a wry smile that conceded how often he did that himself.

"Finstock was here six years ago and well before that," Reid relayed. He rocked back in his chair and stared at the large area map taking up one wall. It had shaded sections and circles and colored lines connecting the murder and dump sites. "Adrian Harris went to school here too. Interestingly, he liked to bully smarter kids then too. He also had an unhealthy obsession with one of his classmates: Lucinda Hale. He was bad at taking no for an answer until Lucinda beat the crap out of him."

"Good for her," Emily muttered.

"I talked to his ex-wife," Garcia said. "She thought he'd lit the kitchen on fire after she filed for divorce, but it was ruled an electrical fire."

"Oh, that isn't suspicious at all," Rossi joked.

"Except Harris is one of our victims."

"And how many times have we found out victims were guilty of other crimes?" Rossi raised his eyebrows at JJ. She held her hand up, conceding his point.

"Anything else?" Hotch asked before the conversation could derail.

"Coach Finstock mentioned specifically that Harris spent a lot of time with the substitute swim coach six years ago when Harris was drinking heavily. Kate Da Silva. But she left after a couple of months. That was when Harris went on the wagon and Finstock took over the phys-ed department."

"Garcia—"

"Find the substitute and see if she knows what scared Harris sober," Garcia confirmed. "All will be revealed, sir."

"What did you get from the hot French teacher?" Morgan asked Rossi.

"A cold shoulder." Rossi had that thoughtful look of his. "Bupkis."

"You couldn't charm her?"

"Casanova couldn't charm her. That is one controlled woman. The CIA could go to her to learn how to be tight-lipped."

"But you think she knows something," Hotch stated.

"Oh, she knows a lot of things, but telling them is whole different thing. She has counselled all the kids who were at the school the night Jurasik was killed."

"Not surprising." Hotch said and made a note. "All right. Anything else?" He looked up, checking with each of them silently.

"Nada," Rossi replied.

"Then we begin again and go over everything we know."

 

**~~~November 14, 2012~~~**

**New Moon**

"Okay," Penelope told everyone. She'd grown used to having their eyes all on her. The year she handled JJ's media liaison job on top of her own research and analysis hadn't cured her of public speaking jitters, but these were her friends. She knew if she stumbled or stuttered that they wouldn't mock her. Each of them gave her their entire attention. They valued what she contributed. It was a warm and fluffy feeling, even amid a job that drowned her in cold, ugly realities.

"I have everything that is digitally available about the Hales. Surprisingly little, but kind of interesting."

She took a deep breath and began.

"The Hales were in Beacon Hills before God. They owned most of it and a title search shows they still own big chunks aside from the Preserve. There is a lot of land, a lot of investments, and a shit ton of just plain money. The Hales liked to stay fifty percent liquid."

They had also liked to sock it away in accounts that only needed a password to access. Penelope couldn't trace it all without better accounting software and warrants. Judging by the way they'd banked, she'd bet the family had kept big chunks of cash on hand too. It was like while they were old and established, the family was always ready to run.

"By the way, Willa Howard Hale? Third cousin, but she took over running to family after the last time their house was burnt down. That's when the family cemetery was filled up. No mention of what happened, if anything, to whoever started that fire."

Emily lifted her eyebrows at the mention of a previous fire. The Hales didn't not have good luck.

Penelope drew in a deep breath.

"When Peter Hale was pulled from the fire, he had burns over thirty percent of his body. Everyone thought he'd die and it's a miracle he didn't, but he'd been catatonic since. There's some disagreement over whether it was psychological from the trauma of the fire and his burns or a physical result of oxygen deprivation resulting in brain damage, but the bottom line was, the poor guy was basically a helpless vegetable after the fire. No one was thinking he could take care of anyone after the fire even if he did recover. And he was the only adult survivor."

She felt so bad for that family, especially those two kids, it made her voice break a little.

"Laura was seventeen, Derek had turned sixteen just a couple of weeks earlier. He was a Christmas baby."

"That always sucks, especially for a middle kid," JJ murmured.

Penelope nodded.

"It gets worse. Not all the Hales lived in the house, Peter did, and Minerva, and Talia's kids. Her sister Tammy and cousin Mattias Howard lived in a house in town. They'd just had a baby, Edward. He was one," Penelope said.

JJ and Hotch both flinched. Rossi closed his eyes for a second. She thought he might have mouthed a prayer too. She patted her chest, because that made her heart hurt worse than being shot – and Penelope had been shot, so she knew from being shot. Little kids and babies should not die in horrible fires that left the survivors wrecked forever. She did not approve of a universe that allowed that sort of thing.

"Lucinda, Talia's other sister, lived in San Francisco with her husband Jude Foster with their son, Michael, who was three. Talia's other kids were Coraline, who was ten, and twin girls, Florence and Nora, who were five."

She'd just bet the family teased the girls by calling them the 'Oras': Laura, Cora, Flora and Nora.

Penelope sighed over the picture of little Edward Hale Howard. "They all got together once a year after Christmas, wherever they were living."

"The one time in a year that all of the family was under one roof and there's a fire," Morgan said in harsh voice. He was as affected by the idea of those children dying as Penelope was, because under his macho player attitude Derek Morgan had a marshmallow heart. "Don't try to tell me that was a coincidence."

"And Laura and Derek would have been there when the fire happened too if he hadn't been stuck with a detention. Laura had a car she was supposed to share with Derek as soon as he had his license – remember he just turned sixteen – and she got sent to town to pick him up. They got back in time to see part of the house collapse while the fire department tried to put it out. Derek almost made it inside before Laura tackled him and several deputies got them to safety."

Penelope picked up her remote and started a blurry black and white video. "Dash cam footage from Deputy Findley's cruiser."

The fire was a white flare that filled most of the frame. Silhouettes of firefighters moved in front of it, the water from their hoses dimming the flames briefly before they surged up again. A sports car skidded into the picture, the doors flung open, and the thin figure of a teenager raced toward the flames. The driver sprinted after him and brought him down just short of the flames, close enough someone had to beat out sparks catching in their clothes. The two teenagers were pulled away out of the frame. The fire raged on, quickly eating more than half the large house before it was eventually knocked down.

"Dear God," JJ murmured.

"Who gave Derek the detention?" Hotch asked because he was brilliant like that.

"Adrian Harris."

"God damn small towns," Rossi muttered. "Everyone is connected. Like trying to find the silver needle in a stack of steel ones."

"Helluva metaphor, Rossi," Morgan remarked. No one denied Rossi had a point, though.

Sheriff Stilinski knocked against the open door once. "I remember that day. Those two kids… Felt so sorry for them. The EMTs sat them down in the back of an ambulance and they just watched. Laura was holding onto Derek like someone was going to tear him away from her. Derek didn't say a word. They were both shaking and crying. One of the other deputies drove them to the hospital after Peter was pulled out of the front of the house." He looked at team. "Two days later, after the case was closed, Laura took Derek and bolted. We tried to find them, but the trail went dead in Sacramento, where Laura sold the car for cash."

"That she did," Penelope confirmed. "She used part of it to buy an old truck with a camper and didn't file the change of registration for a week. That got them both out of California. She got them fake IDs in Las Vegas. They zigzagged through the Southwest for the next seven months, picking up cash under the counter work as a waitress or washing dishes and living out of the camper.

"The truck must have broken down north of Las Cruces. That's where they abandoned it. Laura took a job as a stripper with a new fake ID there. No trace of where they lived. They might have couch surfed or squatted or sublet a room. Whatever they did, they stayed under the radar of law enforcement. ICE had the place under surveillance and there's crappy surveillance footage that includes Laura coming and going from the bar for work."

Penelope started a jerky clip of a back door into an alley. She hoped no one asked what database she'd hacked to get it. The single light on over the doorway showed Laura, in a skimpy outfit, accompanied by Derek, who had shot up by a couple inches. He hugged her before she went inside and then took off. There were no full-face shots, but the Hales' profiles were unmistakable.

"Surveillance showed Derek coming with her and meeting her after her shift every night."

"How'd you find this, baby girl?" Morgan asked.

"Archival facial recognition search." She'd written the program and set it crawling through every law enforcement data base in the US days ago. It wasn't anything near certain. Instead it found possibilities Penelope had to look at and judge with her human eye and brain. Someday the prototype AIs would be able to do the same, but not yet, and not with the computer power the FBI had.

"That's amazing, Garcia," Emily said sincerely.

Penelope curtseyed. "You ask, I deliver."

She turned off the clip. "Laura actually called the family law firm after her eighteenth birthday. She wanted to know what had happened to Peter and where he was. They were able to give her that, but she wouldn't tell them where she and Derek were or anything beyond that they were alive. She was still afraid of Derek being removed from her care."

"I can see that. Most courts aren't going to think a girl without a high school diploma working as an exotic dancer is a good candidate for guardian," Rossi commented.

"Do you think she knew the fire wasn't accidental?" Emily asked. "Could she have been afraid for her and Derek's lives?"

"It's very possible," Hotch said.

"Very possible," Penelope said. "Because she and Derek drifted through a lot of different places, never staying more than a few months before they washed up in New York in time for Derek to turn eighteen. If they were simply afraid of being separated, they could have resumed their identities, even come back to Beacon Hills and taken control of their inheritance. Instead, they stayed away, though they both did get their GEDs under their own names, but they lived under the identities Lorene and Darren Negri in a sublet."

"Still hiding," Emily suggested.

"Still hiding," Morgan agreed.

"What the hell were they hiding from?" Sheriff Stilinski wondered. "And if they knew they were in danger, why did Laura come back here?"

"Unfortunately, that information is not on any computer," Penelope said. "What is, though, are some really hinky doings by the Argent family. Also, some really, really weird coincidences."

"Once is a coincidence," Sheriff Stilinski said. "Twice is a pattern, three times – "

"Is not a coincidence," Rossi finished, causing Stilinski to lift his eyebrows and chuckle. "Tell us about the Argents. Something about the 'interim' high school principal bothered me."

Penelope started with the obvious, then the hidden, then the things that had bothered her enough to run comparisons and searches to look for intersections.

"The Argents are major shareholders in Argent Arms International, which is based out of France. The French and American branches of the family seem to have been estranged since Estelle Argent, Gerard's wife, died in an accident twenty-six years ago. Estelle was from the French side of the family; Gerard was the poor American cousin. He took over operations after Estelle died over the objections of the French branch. There was a nasty legal fight before they ousted him. Since then, he's moved around a lot, living off the family money. Some very dirty legal tricks let him take control of the trusts meant for their son and daughter. I mean, I had to dig deep to uncover this. It's possible his kids don't even know about the trusts and that he's been looting them."

"How did Estelle Argent die?" Hotch asked.

"I'm glad you asked. It was a 'hunting accident'. She bled out before Gerard could carry her out from their camp and get her to a hospital."

"Convenient," Morgan said.

Penelope agreed. The officers who investigated had been suspicious too, but, "Nothing could be proven against him."

"This is the man acting as our Principal?" Stilinski muttered. "Jesus."

"We should find the former principal in addition to interviewing Harris' colleagues," Hotch said. "Garcia, what are Gerard Argent's qualifications for the position?"

"None that I could find. Sir, I looked, but no one even did a background check on him. The last Principal just walked him into the high school, told everyone he was taking over, and disappeared. He had the right paperwork, no one asked any questions."

"My son keeps telling me the teachers at the high school are a joke." Stilinski shook his head. "He hasn't said anything about the principal, though. The last time he was in trouble, it was still Thomas."

"Sir," Penelope said, "there's more. Chris and Kate Argent, the son and daughter? Chris is married and his wife worked as a buyer for a string of department stores, while he worked as a rep for Argent Arms. They've moved all over the country. Twenty-seven moves in eighteen years. His sister Kate? The longest she's stayed any place is six months. She 'works' for Argent Arms too, goes to conventions and does weapons demonstrations. But she disappears for weeks at a time too, doesn't use her credit cards."

She put up a picture of Katherine Irene Argent. Even her driver's license photo was attractive. She looked a little like her brother in coloring. She was grinning gleefully at the camera. She looked like her mother, but Estelle Argent looked much more reserved in the photographs of her that Garcia had unearthed.

Finally, she added one more picture. It showed a young Gerard Argent (with all his hair) and a handsome younger man, very much like Chris Argent in looks, both with crossbows, in front two targets, grinning at the camera.

"Alexander Argent, Gerard's baby brother. He was like a travelling salesman for Argent Arms. He checked himself into the Glen Capri Motel on the coast near Fortuna and killed himself eighteen years ago."

"Any suggestion it wasn't suicide?" Rossi asked.

"No. He left a note. It said 'This is what I have to do. My family will understand. It's our way.' Whatever that means. The only odd thing was he had a bandaged dog bite on upper arm and an opened pack of baby diapers in the trunk of his car. No one ever explained that, but people do crazy things when they're… " Penelope trailed off. They knew.

"Anyway, that's what I have so far on the Argents – "

One of the deputies Penelope hadn't met yet knocked hard on the door and came in without waiting. "We just got a call. There's another body, this time in Hill Valley."

"God damn it," Rossi exclaimed. "He's accelerating."

"Or decompensating," Hotch said.

"Or taunting us," Morgan finished.

"Who says we couldn't hit the trifecta?" Emily joked. She was on her feet and reaching for her jacket.

"Prentiss, take Reid," Hotch said.

"Sir?" Penelope said.

Hotch paused and waited for her. She found the folder she'd put the report she'd printed out in and offered it to him. "Agent Unduwe sent this."

He accepted it and bent his head, flicking through the pages as he read. Penelope had read the report too, so she knew what it said. Unduwe had looked at the pictures taken at the Hale house, both from the original file and ones they'd taken. He had opinions on how a fire hot enough to cremate bodies hadn't destroyed the entire structure.

The basement had had windows. Once the Hales had taken refuge there, someone had broken one window and pumped accelerant directly inside. They had never had a chance to go up and try to jump from the upper stories. Burning the rest of the house had been cover for their deaths.

Only the fact the house had been built for safety in wildfires had kept it from being completely consumed. Unduwe had included a note that fire behaved unpredictably, that while half of the house surviving was improbable it was obviously possible, because it had. He was positive the arson had been premeditated murder, accomplished by or with the aid of someone versed in chemistry

Hotch flipped the file closed. "That explains Harris," he said.

"Yes sir."

"Thank you, Garcia."

 

**~~~November 15, 2012~~~**

**Waning Moon**

 

"Has he been IDed yet?" Emily asked Graeme. The chief deputy had a quick wit and practicality that made getting along with her easy.

The DB lay in two pieces, a pool of blood between them. Something black and foul-smelling had trickled down from his mouth and nose. Lines like blood poisoning, only blue-black, crawled beneath his skin from multiple penetrating wounds.

Graeme consulted her notebook. "Reed Schall. He's local, an ex-hippie, moved here thirty years ago."

Emily knelt and looked at Schall's upper body closely. He'd been fit for an older man. His shirt was gone, revealing gray hair on his chest. A tattoo of the sun surrounded one nipple, the moon matching it on the other side, and a Celtic-looking symbol of three points and curves surrounded his navel. She'd seen stranger tattoos and Graeme said he was an ex-hippie.

Reid bent at the waist to peer of her shoulder.

"I don't know this one," Emily said, pointing at the last symbol.

"It's a triquetra, also known as a Trinity Knot."

Schall had been bound. The ropes were gone, but the ligature marks were obvious. He'd fought and rubbed his wrists raw. The black ooze seeped where the skin was gone.

Emily rose to her feet. She looked around the scene. They were in the open back of a flower nursery, surrounded by pretty plants, flowers, and trees in pots. A fence of chain link and green slats provided privacy and security against thieves. But not against a killer.

"Who found him?" she asked.

"Employee," Graeme said. "Teenager named Talbott, comes in before school and waters all the outdoor plants, sets out the ones that go inside overnight if it's sunny. Schall would come in later, open up the place."

Emily winced at the thought of the kid finding his boss murdered. Too many teenagers were having the last of their innocence torn away by this killer. She supposed it was better than the unsub leaving the bodies where little kids would find them, but not by much.

"Schall was the owner?"

"Him and the bank, I imagine."

"The unsub didn't just kill him," Reid said quietly. "He tortured him."

"He tortured Unger and Reddick," Emily pointed out.

"Look at him," Reid insisted. "It isn't the same style of torture at all. Ropes and whatever caused these lines. It looks like an allergic reaction."

"You think we've got a copycat?" They'd kept most of the details out of the media reports, but the unsub had some access to law enforcement, they were sure of it. There was still the matter of the man who murdered and impersonated CBI Agent Tyhurst and the unknown hacker who had replaced his information in the CBI database.

Reid rocked on his heels. The morning sun played over his cheekbones and brightened his hair from brown to bright. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, ruining the hang of the sports jacket he had on over a hideous Argyle sweater vest.

"Or two unsubs. Partners. Even if they don't kill together, they're united somehow."

~~~

Kate left her father at her rented house. They had had a busy night and it had left him exhausted. If Chris or Vicky saw him, they'd guess what he'd been up to.

Gerard was getting weaker. The drugs he was on, only some of them legal in the US, were less and less effective. Soon he wouldn't be able to hunt and act as that stupid school's 'principal'.

Kate tightened her hands on the steering wheel, poking holes in the leather covering it. She'd pick up his prescriptions at the pharmacy and the other drugs from the former emissary. At least they would let him hold on long enough to kill one last alpha and end the Hales for good.

She didn't look at her eyes in the rearview mirror.

~~~

Victoria looked at the photographs she'd been emailed and wondered how whoever Matt Daehler was had obtained her email before fury overwhelmed everything else. The pictures were color and quite good and utterly damning.

Allison had defied them. She was quite clearly still involved with the McCall boy. The pictures showed them sitting together, leaning into each other, in each other's arms, and several instances when they were kissing.

Her daughter, her beautiful, marvelous, miracle child, had defiled herself with one of those creatures.

Victoria's fingers curled into white-knuckled fists. She was gritting her teeth so hard the enamel should have cracked, a muscle in her jaw jumping in tandem with her racing pulse.

Control came hard, but Victoria prided herself on it. She wasn't one of those fools who thought the job needed to mimic gladiatorial combat. Hunting wasn't a game. The method that killed the fastest and kept you the safest was always preferable. Kate's games and house fires were dangerous, not just to Kate, but to all hunters, and resulted in collateral damage that if it came out would harm the Argent reputation for generations. She didn't need some sick thrill from cozying up to a target and fooling them before she killed. She didn't hunt to entertain herself.

Victoria didn't even approve of the traditional crossbow. Not as the weapon of choice, though like a knife, it had its place in situations where silence was imperative.

She'd still been proud that Allison had taken to the Argent weapon of choice as though she were born to it, even though she had no clue to her heritage, though.

A sniper rifle with handloaded wolfsbane ammunition killed werewolves more reliably than arrows, though, and meant you were out of range of teeth and claws. The only drawback was the current alertness of law enforcement to active shooters and domestic terrorism.

Most hunters weren't half as good at a low profile as they thought. Too many were thugs drawn to the license to violence and relied too much on intimidation tactics. Victoria recognized that sooner or later, you ran into someone who wouldn't be cowed. Particularly if they were law enforcement and picked you up with a long gun that had been recently fired.

Human allies of werewolf packs were the absolute worst. The Code didn't address traitors, so every hunter had to formulate their own rules of engagement. Victoria had no problem taking them out, but human children in a wolf pack gave even her pause.

Chris was more squeamish and more rigid – He considered killing any human in the course of a hunt anathema. He didn't want Allison to ever face that and Victoria had agreed.

She and Chris had chosen to give Allison as close to a normal childhood as possible. Maybe they'd let it go on too long. Allison was at an age where she wanted to exert her independence. When Kate exposed her to the truth, instead of embracing the Hunter vocation, Allison began questioning the belief that werewolves were monsters that had to be put down.

That was not what Victoria had wanted and she blamed Kate and Kate's methods.

Kate, who had been raised by Gerard from childhood to hunt, was the reason she'd gone along with Chris to keep Allison out of it. Though neither of them ever discussed it, she knew Chris knew what she did: there was something _wrong_ with Kate.

But it was Kate Victoria needed now. Because Kate wasn't bothered by the Code. She would have no problem doing what was necessary to keep Allison from the McCall boy.

Allison was already eighteen. If Victoria and Chris left Beacon Hills, Allison could defy them and stay. They couldn't force her without completely alienating her.

It would have to be McCall. Victoria had to stop him. She knew how obsessive and possessive werewolves could become. Teenagers were worse. He already knew Allison was supposed to stay away from him and was defying that. He couldn't be warned away. There were no legal measures, not that Victoria would risk law enforcement attention, that would stop him.

He had to die.

Given the danger they were all in in the wake of Peter Hale's rampage and the FBI's presence, it had to seem natural or at least accidental. Allison couldn't know or guess.

Well, she might not like Kate much, but in this case, Victoria wasn't above consulting her. Chris would balk at pre-emptive action.

Three hours later she and her sister-in-law had a plan that sufficed. McCall had a long history of asthma attacks that resulted in hospitalizations before he was bitten. He'd no doubt stopped taking any medication since becoming a werewolf. It wouldn't be that surprising if he suffered an attack that resulted in death.

The nebulizer that Victoria obtained, and that Kate modified, would pump wolfsbane into the air of a small room – not enough to badly effect a human though extensive exposure would lead to illness – and McCall would breathe it in, choke and die as his lungs stopped working.

An expert autopsy would find black tar-like lesions in McCall's lungs, but Beacon Hills' coroner was aged, incompetent, and amendable. Kate had ascertained that years before, in case any of the Hales' bodies were recovered.

Kate took Allison off to shop in Redding using Gerard's credit card and passed Victoria her phone as they left. Chris and Gerard were at the range doing inventory. Neither one liked it, but Chris had bowed to her suggestion they try to find some common ground.

All Victoria had to do was mimic a text to McCall from Allison. When she scrolled back through Allison's messages, Victoria found what she needed: Allison had met McCall more than once behind the club Jungle. It was easy enough to mimic her, messaging him to meet him at the equipment room at the back of the club.

When McCall walked in, Victoria tasered him from behind, appropriated his phone and turned on the nebulizer, before she walked out, locking the door behind her. She set herself up in a corner of the storeroom to wait it out. She'd need to retrieve the nebulizer once McCall was dead and return his phone once she'd deleted the false text from Allison.

It should have been simple.

McCall was an omega. He had no pack ties, there was no reason Hale and his betas should have responded to the gasping, pathetic howl McCall attempted.

There was little point to pretending it was anything but what it was when Hale and a large beta arrived. They would recognize the scent of wolfsbane, gunpowder, Victoria herself. She began shooting as they charged in, hitting Hale, but he threw a filing cabinet at her. She lost her pistol as she ducked away.

The beta tore the door to the storage room with McCall open.

The wolfsbane steam boiled out of the room in a cloud that set Hale and his beta coughing. Victoria scrambled for her gun where it was on the floor under an old rolling chair. She reached it and fired twice, but her angle was all wrong.

"Get him to Deaton!" Hale shouted to his beta. His eyes were hot red coals in the low light of the backroom. The wolfsbane steam obscured Victoria's aim, swirling in the air currents left by the werewolves moving through it faster than a human eye could track.

Hale sprang over the fallen file cabinet. One clawed hand went for the gun in her hand, wresting it away. Victoria went for her back-up, a dagger coated in concentrated wolfsbane. The poisonous steam was getting to her too, thick and smothering, blurring her thoughts as well as her sight.

Hale pulled the pistol from her hand and Victoria went with the motion, trying to slash at his throat. He dodged and his fangs tore through her shirt and drew blood from her shoulder.

It burned like acid and Victoria didn't know if it was venomous infection of an alpha's saliva entering her bloodstream or the knowledge that she'd been bit, however inadvertent it had been.

Hale was already ripping the knife from her hand and throwing it to it sink hilt deep in a wall. He was gone after the beta, McCall with them, before Victoria could make it to her knees.

She was left to police the scene before the club's personnel arrived. There were no bodies and she doubted anyone would notice the bullet holes. She ripped the rest of her sleeve off and used it as a bandage, so she didn't leave any blood behind. Then she managed to right the filing cabinet and push it against the wall where it had been. The broken chair she left. She picked up the brass kicked out of the pistol Hale had taken, shut off the nebulizer and took everything out to her car, then went back and wiped everything she could think of down with Clorox wipes.

The chlorine stench left her coughing so hard she had to lean against her car for five minutes, but finally she was able to drive away.

If only she could escape from the disaster of her attempt on McCall half so easily.

She'd been bitten by an alpha in at least half shift.

Bites and clawing were more likely to turn someone if the alpha was shifted.

Kate had been lucky. Victoria didn't believe in luck.

Knuckles white on the steering wheel, she navigated back to the house, then inside, thankful it was empty.

She cleaned the wound in the en suite bathroom off her and Chris' bedroom.

Victoria knew what she needed to do.

She should call Chris. She should let him know why she'd done what she had so he could find a way to succeed where she'd failed. She should make sure Hale was put down for biting her. She should write a note that would remove any hint of suspicion from the rest of the family. She should…

She called her sister-in-law instead. Kate would help her do what was necessary. Better if Chris was oblivious and alibied.

~~~

"Oh, Vicky," Kate said when she walked into the en suite bathroom and spotted the wound on Victoria' shoulder. She'd obviously already showered and dressed again and was trying to examine the awkwardly placed bite wound in a mirror.

"It was Hale," Victoria told her. Her pale eyes gave away the shock she wasn't letting show otherwise.

"Have you taken a painkiller?" Kate asked.

The wound was still seeping bright red blood. It no doubt hurt. Kate didn't see any sign of accelerated healing, but if Victoria was going to reject the Bite, it would already have gone tarry-black.

"No, I want to keep my head clear."

"He's the alpha now. How – "

"The omega howled. Hale came for him," Victoria said stonily. "I took a shot. Hit him. He went for the gun, I used my knife, I sliced my shoulder on his fangs trying to get the gun back."

If she'd shot Derek, then he would have wanted the gun for the ammunition so he could burn the wolfsbane out of his system. Kate hadn't thought he'd bite a hunter intentionally. If he was going to do that, he'd have come after her.

She unconsciously brushed her fingers over the places Victoria had stitched up for her when Peter Hale clawed her. She rubbed the skin with Vitamin E and cocoa butter three times a day. The scars were visible, if you knew to look for them, but a little cover-up took care of that.

"You know what you have to do," Kate said. She injected as much sympathy as she could into her tone.

"I know," Victoria said. She pressed her lips together. Her make-up was gone, the crimson lipstick she usually wore absent. Her face looked weirdly doll-like and unfinished bare of eyeliner, mascara and perfectly penciled brows. Her hair was still damp and clung to her skull, darker than usual.

She taped a surgical wound dressing over the bite and buttoned her silk blouse up. Kate followed her out of the en suite and sat on the foot of the bed while Victoria seated herself at her dressing table. She watched as Victoria did her hair and then her make-up. She put on gold stud earrings, a spritz of perfume, her watch and her wedding ring.

Then she walked downstairs to the den. "You'll make sure Chris and Allison get these letters," she said after she'd written several pages and sealed them in individual envelopes.

"I'll make sure no one else sees them," Kate promised. "You should probably do a note to leave for the police to see, otherwise they'll look closer at Chris than we can probably afford."

"I'll call and make sure he's still at the range. You should leave as well."

"Don't worry, I'll have an alibi if I need it."

Victoria walked back upstairs. She paused there before going into Allison's room.

Kate followed her inside. Her pulse sped and she felt a prickle of sweat inside her elbows and behind her knees. Victoria was smoothing the comforter on Allison's bed, fluffing the pillows, then picking a set of earrings off the nightstand and placing it back in Allison's jewelry box.

"I should make sure she gets some of my things. There's a bracelet that was my mother's," Victoria murmured.

"She'll get everything," Kate assured her. She was tempted to poke through Vicky's jewelry just to see what was there, but it would be too stupid. She'd go through it all with Allison. They could _bond_.

Victoria pressed her hand flat against her waist. "What am I doing?" she asked. "This will wreck Allison. She still needs me."

Kate slipped her favorite knife from the hidden sheath at her back. She drew closer to Victoria.

"You want her to see you turn into one of the beasts?" she asked.

Victoria huffed humorlessly. "Why not? She's willing to sleep with one."

"You'd betray everything a hunter stands for?"

"I could still do it," Victoria said. "I could… I could make Allison understand, talk with her, tell her how much I love her."

"And you think she'd let you do it if you told her?" Kate demanded in disbelief.

"Maybe she's right – "

Kate caught Victoria from behind, arm in line with Victoria's so the blade of her knife slid in right where Victoria had pressed her palm. She sank it deep and angled the tip of the blade up.

Victoria grabbed at her hand and caught the hilt as Kate let go of it and stepped back, away from the blood pouring from her. She watched as Victoria gasped and fell back on Allison's bed. She yanked the knife out.

"Couldn't let you chicken out, Vicky," Kate said as she circled around. Clutching at her belly, Victoria blinked up at her. Her lips parted and she coughed. Blood trickled from one corner of her mouth. "But don't worry, I'll make sure Chris and Allison know who bit you and how _brave_ you were – "

"Bitch," Victoria gasped. Her eyes flew wide and flared icy, electric blue for a second.

"Murder blue!" Kate laughed. "I never liked you either, sweetie."

" _Your eyes…_ "

Victoria crumpled then, consciousness fading away, as her life's blood pumped out in a glistening red pool under her. The Bite had taken. She'd been turning, but it was too soon for her to heal like a werewolf, not when Kate's knife had been coated with Nordic Blue Monkshood.

The thrill of it made Kate nearly dance out of Allison's bedroom. She needed to wash her hands, though.

She grinned at herself in the mirror over the sink. Vicky had said something about her eyes. Kate peered at her reflection. There was something wrong with her eyes. Her pupils…

Kate leaned in close and watched as her pupils contracted into a thin, vertical slits then shrunk back to a normal round shape.

Normal. Her eyes were normal. She was imagining things.

She scrubbed her hands ruthlessly, cleaned the sink, then dried it with toilet paper that she flushed. By the time she'd finished policing away any sign she'd been present when Victoria died, she'd pressed the glimpse in the mirror out of her thoughts.

She pocketed the letters Victoria had left for Chris and Allison and slipped out of the house.

~~~

Kate waited ten minutes to come inside the house after watching Chris park and enter. She walked in the back door into the mudroom that led to kitchen.

Everything was bright in the spotless kitchen, the afternoon light still bright, though dusk would set in soon. Kate had to admit, Victoria was a demon housekeeper and had perfect taste. She'd never quite got all the ins and outs of girly shopping. Her mother died too soon, and Kate had been a daddy's girl anyway, eager to play the tomboy. She'd only really paid attention to dressing nicely when her father expressed disappointment in her appearance, reminding her that her looks and presentation were another weapon in a woman's arsenal. Chris had been engaged to Victoria by then and she had shown Kate how to maximize her assets – tastefully.

She had been adamant in her hatred of all werewolves too, not wishy-washy like Chris. It hadn't been all that difficult to cozen her into bending the Code on more than one occasion. The only thing Kate had really disliked about Victoria was her insistence on going along with Chris and keeping Allison out of the life until she was of age.

Kate had taken part in her first hunt only six months after her mother died. It had been great. She'd lured the beast in, and her father had shot it over and over. Kate shivered, remembering how the animal had twisted and thrashed, how it had begged and then gone silent in horror when Gerard pressed the gun into her small hands and guided her to make the kill shot.

Allison had missed out on all of that.

"Vicky!" she called out for Chris to hear as she set a bag with punts of strawberries on Victoria's glistening clean granite counter. Victoria had mentioned strawberry tart the night before. Kate had made a note. It offered a reason she'd come by. Dear Vicky had asked her to pick up the fruit before dinner. Poor thing hadn't sounded good – Well, she hadn't sounded like anything when Kate used her print to open her phone and make a call to her own. The point was plausibility.

"Hey, Vicky, I got those strawberries you asked for," Kate called out again.

She heard Chris on the stairs. Couldn't he move more quietly than that? He was practically stumbling.

He came into the kitchen. "Kate," he whispered. Victoria's blood smeared on his hands and his shirt, even on the thighs of his pants. He must have picked up her body. Really, it was pathetic. Chris knew a dead body when he saw one. There was no point.

"Victoria," he breathed. "She's – she – "

"Chris, what is it?" Kate asked. She made her face hold a concerned expression when she wanted to cackle. But even Chris would question that reaction.

"Dead," he choked. "She's dead. She – " He lifted his hand to cover his face and froze, noticing the blood. "Oh God. Allison can't see."

"We'll find the animal that got in here and kill it," Kate promised, dancing inside. This would work so well. Allison would finally understand that they were beasts, that even when they looked human, they weren't. Eventually, she might even understand how good it was, when a hunt turned out perfectly, when Kate pulled the trigger, when she set a match to fuse, when she could see the horror in their eyes before they died. She shivered. Oh, that moment, that last instant before life snuffed out. She loved it even more than sex.

"No, Kate, Victoria – " Chris seemed to pull himself together. "Victoria killed herself."

"No."

He looked away, already haggard, the gray in his five o'clock shadow catching the light from the windows, his eyes washed out and pale. "Kate, she did it in Allison's room."

Kate put her hand over her mouth. That had been particularly difficult. Victoria had been so freaked out by the bite and knowing she was going to turn – it had been hours and they knew rejection set in black, bloody, fast and painful – but she'd wanted to do it in the bathroom where it would be easier to clean. She'd detoured into Allison's room to 'be close to her one last time'. It had almost all gone wrong then, when Victoria balked. Oh well. No one needed to know Vicky bottled at the end.

She came around the kitchen island and reached out to hug Chris. He backed away though, saving her from having to toss one of her favorite blouses.

"No, Kate, I have to call in the police. I need you to make sure Allison doesn't walk in and find her mother before they get here. They'll want to interview me, since I found her – " He breathed in and out several times. "She'll need you to stay with her."

"You know I'd do anything for Allison, Chris."

Her beautiful, amazing niece deserved to be protected. Of course, Kate would keep her from having to see the awful mess Victoria had made.

God, the woman couldn't even successfully kill an incompetent idiot who had only been a wolf for a few weeks, and she'd managed to get herself bitten and turned. Allison was better off without her.

"Are you sure she's… " Kate asked. Because Chris and Allison could never know she'd been right there. Her father might guess, but it would be better if she didn't confirm she'd been present to him either. She'd record the kill in her journal of course. Victoria had been turning, that meant another wolf to add to Kate's count. When she was setting up a pack and couldn't do any shooting in case a wolf caught the scent of gunpowder on her, she liked to page through her journals, reliving her 'highlight' reel.

It helped her stay patient while she played seductress.

She stood beside Chris while he tapped in 911 and said, "Please send someone here. Victoria… my wife has killed herself." Dully, he repeated his address and name. "I found her when I went upstairs." His voice cracked and he snapped, "I checked, I'd have called for an ambulance if there was even a chance – Just get here."

Kate squeezed his shoulder. All that wiry muscle was bound up tight. It didn't loosen under her touch.

"This is going to wreck Allison," Chris said in an empty voice.

Kate wanted to roll her eyes. Allison would come through. Why was Chris acting so devastated? He and Victoria weren't a love match - Victoria was a Baylor and their mother had negotiated the marriage between Chris and her when they were children. It had been a useless alliance. The Baylors had bailed when Kate's father took over the American branch of the Argent family.

Wusses.

The wail of a siren, faint but stronger, made Kate slump. She had act upset for the police. Maybe that was what Chris was doing, staying in character. She always had a hard time with faking emotions. She'd learned, though.

Kate would make sure Allison learned as well, but from her and not her father. She'd never liked the way he taught her. Sometimes she'd even wished her mother was still there to make him stop.

~~~

Her mom was dead. Her mother was dead. Her mother killed herself. Her mom was dead. It beat through Allison's head like her heartbeat – _her mother's heartbeat no more_ – until she wanted scream and scream and never stop. All she could do was clutch her hands over her mouth and repeat, "No, no, no."

It didn't do any good.

Kate wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "it'll be okay, honey."

No, no, no, it wouldn't.

The ambulance had been pulling away when Allison arrived home. Her father was leaving with the Sheriff and a deputy.

"What's going on?" she'd asked, _disaster, disaster, death, destruction_ thrumming in the air like a vibration only she felt. Where was her mother? If police were talking to her father and Kate was there by Dad's SUV and her Range Rover, then her mom should have been there, intimidating everyone with her cold stare, her thin plucked eyebrows and her bloody red lipstick. Her mom could scare even the biggest men with one look. If her dad was in trouble her mom would be beside him, doing whatever was needed. No one was as efficient as Victoria Argent. "Where's Mom?"

She saw her dad's face and it was like it was dissolving, all the strength in him spilling out like sand from a bean bag.

"Mom?" she said again as her dad said, "Allison," and Kate pulled Allison into her arms.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, so sorry, your mom, she – "

"Let me do this, Kate," her dad said. The Sheriff and the deputy stepped back – _their faces were filled with an awful pity_ – so he could set his arms on her shoulders. "Allison. Your mother – "

_No, no, no. Oh, no, please_.

"She's killed herself."

"You're wrong," she denied.

"I found her."

"No, no, no. I want to see. You're wrong. She wouldn't – " Her voice rose and cracked. _"She wouldn't!"_

"You can't," her dad said. "They've already taken her to the hospital – " _the morgue, you mean, the morgue,_ " – they'll take care of her _." They'll cut her open and take her apart and sew her up, I can't stand it, I can't stand it._ "It's – it's better. You wouldn't want to see her the way she was."

_No, no, no_. All these thoughts and voices were screaming inside her head.

"It's not better!" Allison spat at him. "Where were you!? Why didn't you stop her!? _Why didn't you know!"_ She beat her fists against his chest and her father folded his arms around her while she howled. "Why didn't I know!? _How could she!?"_

"I don't know, I don't know," her dad whispered into her hair. "I don't know what happened, Ally-baby," and he was crying too, "I don't know."

Kate stroked Allison's back, just like her mom might have, but it was no comfort, no comfort at all, because her mom was gone, and her mom was all Allison wanted.

~~~

Chris stared at the wall opposite him. It needed to be painted. The institution gray-green-taupe had faded to a shade he could only call moldy pea soup. He doubted it would be painted any time soon. The Beacon County Sheriff's Department didn't have the budget for that or replacing the brown-speckled linoleum floors marked with scratches and scuffs of a good twenty-five years.

The wood bench under his ass was probably just as old. Heavy coats of varnish hadn't protected the wood from dings and pocketknives. If he rubbed his fingers along the seat's edge, it's almost serrated with notches dug into it by people who have sat and waited before him.

He felt hollowed out. He'd given a formal statement describing how he'd found Victoria. He was waiting for it to be typed up so he could sign it. Allison was still with Kate. He wasn't sure that was a good idea, but he couldn't imagine going back into their house himself. How could he take Allison back where her mother had killed herself?

Allison's room was probably still sealed with crime scene tape.

The door to her room had been open. That was what drew Chris to look in. Victoria was a stickler for closing doors, picking up shoes, putting coats away. She liked things nice. She liked them in their places. They'd let Allison decorate her room the way she liked. Her room had ruffles and pillows and pretty things; things Chris didn't remember Kate having. He wanted his daughter to have better than his father had given Kate.

Victoria had agreed with him when he said he didn't want Allison to be like Kate.

His mind drifted. He had to think about finding a funeral home, a burial plot, a pastor, the funeral and reception… Couldn't have it in the house, couldn't bear the thought of people in their Sunday best eating funeral meats and looking up the stairs, imagining where Victoria had done it. He wouldn't put Allison through that. Someplace else then, not the house, not where he and Allison would stay tonight.

He wondered if the police would let Kate retrieve some of Allison's clothes. Maybe he could send her to buy some instead. She could take Allison and the Martin girl. Distract her for a little while.

Chris rubbed his hands over his face, felt the rasp of his whispers when they reached his jaw, then dug his fingers hard into his eyes, not sure if he was fighting back tears or trying to make them come.

How could Victoria do this to Allison?

He was so angry with her for being so selfish, damn it. He and Victoria might not have been a love match, but he had loved her. Victoria hadn't been tolerant or flexible minded, but she'd been a good partner. She'd known all of him, the secret hunter inside the businessman, husband, father, estranged son, doubter. He'd loved her strength and intelligence, her will, he'd loved her because they'd shared Allison, he'd loved the way she loved Allison.

He'd never understand how she could abandon their daughter like this.

The Sheriff sank down on the bench beside him. Stilinski doesn't offer him platitudes and Chris felt relief for that. He'd wanted to hit Kate when she said it would be okay.

"Your father is on his way to the station."

Chris didn't want to deal with Gerard. "Fuck." Most of all, he didn't want Gerard near Allison while she was devastated and vulnerable. He didn't trust his own father not to twist this tragedy into a way to control Allison.

She'd be safer in a werewolf den than with Gerard.

If the old bastard hadn't been at the high school or with him all day, Chris would have suspected him of killing Victoria, though Gerard had always seemed to approve her more than Chris himself.

He said it: "I don't want him near Allison."

Stilinski shifted and studied him, but Chris just stared at his hands. He could see his age in his hands. He didn't know when the texture of his skin had changed. The skin was dry, irritated by the harsh soap in the bathroom where he'd scrubbed Victoria's stubborn blood from under his fingernails.

"All right," Stilinski said quietly. "She's with your sister right now."

He didn't want her with Kate either. He wanted his girl with him. He didn't trust what Kate would do if she knew the truth about Allison. He absolutely knew she wouldn't be safe if Gerard ever guessed it. His father would have to guess though; with Victoria gone, Chris was the only one left alive who knew. They'd kept it from Allison.

"I have to find a new place. I can't go back to that house." If it were just him, he could sleep on a couch in the office of the gun range. Allison needed more. She needed a home, her own things, her own room… He didn't want her to know Victoria had killed herself in Allison's room. He had to arrange something else before she found out. "Allison needs clothes." He lifted one hand uselessly. "Her things. I can't – "

"You don't want her going in there," Stilinski agreed. He might look at Chris with the caution of a lawman who knew to look at the spouse and family or significant other first in any violent death, but he was all sympathy for Allison. That was right; Stilinski's son was in the same grade, was friends with that naif boy Allison had fallen for before they found out he was a werewolf. Kate would at least make sure the wolf stayed away from Allison.

"Argent."

Chris forced himself to focus again. "Sorry."

"I know it feels like too much." Stilinski rubbed his thumb over a worn wedding ring. "But you'll live through it anyway for Allison."

Chris blinked and nodded.

"I'll send Tara to pack what your girl will need for a week at least and lock everything up. She can call over to the Comfort Inn, book you a connected suite, if that would help."

"Yes," Chris choked. "Please."

The deputy would likely take the opportunity to search the house from top to bottom. Victoria hadn't left a note that he'd found. They already had her laptop and phone. He did have guns there, but they were properly locked in the gun safe in the basement, along with Allison's archery equipment. The wolfsbane was hidden behind a panel in the safe. He'd pocketed the burner phone and the Mace cannister loaded with purple powder from Victoria's purse and handed both off to Kate after he called the police. Unless Gerard had left something damning in the guest room, the deputy wouldn't find anything to raise anyone's eyebrows. Not even dust; Victoria had kept house with military efficiency.

He almost sobbed. Damn Victoria anyway.

~~~

Noah didn't mean to have more than a couple fingers of whiskey while he let down after another horrific day.

Victoria Argent had gutted herself on her daughter's bed. She'd sunk a hunting knife into abdomen to the hilt. He gagged a little, remembering, because it had to be eight inches if it was one and she'd opened up her intestines as she jerked the edge upward. The blood had soaked through the mattress and down to the carpet, still vividly red when Noah and his deputies arrived on scene. The smell had been intense in the closed room, the effect more gruesome in Allison's pretty, girly sanctum.

How angry must Victoria have been with her daughter to do that there, to violate her that way, to try to make sure it was Allison her found her?

Maybe he could get Rossi or that Prentiss agent to interview the Argents and tell him what the fuck was wrong with that family.

Honestly, Allison seemed like a sweet girl. She'd been unmistakably torn up over her mother, unlike her butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth aunt. Even if the BAU weren't starting to zero in on the woman, Noah would have watched her closely. She put his hackles up. Cop instinct he knew better than to ignore.

He'd denied sensing something was wrong with Claudia for so long. Noah slugged down the whiskey and poured himself another shot, making it generous, leaving the bottle on the side table with him.

At least Argent's kid was old enough he didn't have to arrange babysitters and daycare and pediatricians, and all the shit Claudia had handled when Stiles was small. She'd done it all so unobtrusively, Noah had never even thought about any of it until she stopped. Until he had to make sure Stiles had school clothes and his shoes fit and do his job and ride herd on his increasingly erratic wife.

Noah gulped down more whiskey, relishing the burn and the heat in his belly more than the taste. Christ, just remembering showing up at Stile's school and answering the principal's humiliating questions about why Stiles came to school in the same clothes a week straight and had weeping blisters from shoes two sizes too small. Why the fuck couldn't Stiles have said something?

He sloshed more whiskey into the tumbler, reliving how Claudia had been angry when he asked her, insisting she'd taken Stiles shopping for school. She'd even described the Spiderman t-shirt Stiles had fallen in love with, one Noah had recognized from Stile's glee over it when he'd come home from work – two years before. He'd had to explain to her. Claudia had started crying which only made Noah feel worse.

She'd promised to take Stiles the next day. He'd come home to no Claudia and no Stiles the next evening and been ready to call in an APB when Melissa drove Claudia and Stiles home in Claudia's car. Claudia had just been sitting in the car at the mall. She'd locked Stiles out. His eight-year-old son had persuaded some stranger – Noah had nearly puked at the danger Stiles had been in – to let him use their phone. Stiles had called Scott and Scott had called Melissa.

Melissa had helped him put Claudia to bed, then cooked a meal for Noah and Stiles, and gone home with the promise of coming back the next day, which she had, and taking Stiles to get new shoes and clothes and school things. Noah had numbly handed her all the cash from his wallet while she hissed at him that he couldn't let things go on any longer. _She can't take care of herself, Noah, she can't take of a little boy. How many times does he have to come to my house because he's hungry, because she's forgotten and locked him out? Do something or I'll have to report you, damn it._

He'd gone upstairs and sat beside his sleeping wife. The woman he loved and married, the mother of his only child. He couldn't keep her with him. She couldn't be trusted with their son any longer.

Noah clenched his hand around the whiskey tumbler. Sometimes he felt like he'd had to give up Claudia because of Stiles. He'd had to sacrifice the rarer and rarer times when she was herself and damn if he didn't resent the boy for that.

He loved his son. He did. But the boy wasn't easy. Premature and colicky his first year. Prone to ear infections and catching every bug someone breathed on him and clumsy enough to keep the band-aid industry in business all by himself. From the beginning Stiles had need so much attention from Claudia.

She'd loved it, Noah less so, but she'd promised it would get better and it had and coming home to a spindly toddler who greeted him with a whirlwind of delight had become the best part of his days.

He chalked up Claudia's exhaustion, her withdrawal from the many activities she'd once relished, even her impatience with Stiles, to needing a break after the first, hardest years of raising him, well aware she did all the heavy lifting parts of being a parent.

But she'd grown worse, gradually, and then the degeneration turned swift and there was no denying it.

There wasn't enough whiskey in the world to wash away how awful it was to wake Claudia in the morning, to get her in the shower and dressed before stripping the sheets from the bed she'd soiled overnight. He'd dealt with the laundry, bleaching everything, but he hadn't managed to get Stiles breakfast before Melissa arrived the morning after the mall incident.

Claudia had quietly cried through the whole morning. She didn't remember the day before, she was just crying, the way she did more and more. Noah thought she cried when she was aware of how everything that made her _her_ was sloughing away. She was sharper in the mornings; he thought that was how he'd missed how things were going wrong so long.

He'd told her about the day before, about the times she forgot to pick up Stiles from Melissa's, the groceries she left at the store, the stove burner left on under a pot boiled dry that nearly caused a fire, the nightly 'accidents', the credit card debt she'd run up compulsively buying things from HSN, but not the time she'd slapped Stiles, the days she didn't let him in the house after school let out, the coffee she'd thrown at her son when he handed her salt instead of sugar, accusing him of trying to poison her.

He thought it would kill him telling Claudia she needed to be in a place that could care for her, but she'd agreed. She'd held his hand while he made the calls.

Stiles had been quietly happy with the things Melissa had picked out for him. She'd taken him to Arby's instead of Mickey D's and introduced him to curly fries. There was even a small action figure to match one Scott had, picked out by Scott as a present.

No one had been happy the next day.

Claudia had forgotten their agreement of the day before. She hadn't wanted to leave the house, perhaps on some level aware she wouldn't return. Stiles had been bratty and obstructive as Noah tried to organize them both. During the drive, Claudia tried to throw herself out of the car, accusing Noah of kidnapping her. Only her seatbelt saved her from succeeding at fifty-five miles an hour (Noah had been speeding). Stiles had piped up that maybe he should make her ride in the back of the cruiser in the 'cage' – something Noah once joked about making Stiles do – and Claudia had accused Noah of treating her like a criminal. He'd wanted to slap his son.

His wife, his bright, funny, mischievous wife that he loved more than his life, had looked around the room where she would stay, then screamed and kicked and bit when the nurse stopped her following Noah out when he tried to talk to her doctor. Stiles was screaming and crying too as Noah clutched the boy too him while trying to calm Claudia and not punch the orderly holding her down until she could be sedated.

Stiles had cried himself sick, puked on himself in the car, and was inconsolable. Noah had had no idea what to do for him. He'd cleaned him up and then put him to bed, despite the early hour, and then drunk himself insensible.

Noah thought of how Chris Argent kept mumbling _how could she do that to Allison_ over and over and smiled nastily. Fuck him, he didn't know how much worse it could be. His girl was mostly grown – probably fucking Scott every chance they got if he remembered teenage hormones – and Victoria had at least made it quick. The selfish bitch had made the choice to check out and abandon her family. Not like his poor Claudy.

He sniffed. It wasn't fair. Claudia never got a choice.

Noah staggered to his feet. He had to piss. He needed to fix dinner too. His stomach was sloshing with too much alcohol, threatening to invert itself. Where the fuck was Stiles anyway? Stupid kid. How was Noah supposed to feed him if he wasn't home where he was supposed to be? Lacrosse practice. Ha! His kid was a shit athlete. Not like Noah. Noah had been a star in high school. Baseball, football, swim. He'd practically been a stud. Not like his scrawny pain in the ass son.

He made it to the bathroom upstairs, clutching onto the stair bannister when everything went whirly, though he ran into the door jamb with his shoulder before he made it inside. He got the seat up and his pants open just in time, swaying and spattering the hot stream of urine on the side of the bowl so some hit the tiles. Fuck. Let Stiles clean it up. He shook himself off and tucked away, then meticulously washed his hands.

He laughed. Hygiene was important. Claudia would have cussed him out for making a mess. At least before she started pissing herself. At least he hadn't got any on his uniform.

"Claudy," he mumbled as he stumbled back to the living room for his bottle, then took it into the kitchen. "What'm I 'posed t'do, Claudy? How d'I d'this? Fuck. Fuck."

He was at the sink when Stiles came in, a flurry of book bag and 'crosse stick and gawky limbs, thumping in the entry and up the stairs, then thundering down. "Dad? Hey, where're are you – ?"

Stiles' voice died and he stopped in the kitchen doorway. Noah clutched the mostly empty bottle and glared at him. Where the fuck had he been, anyway? Fucking around, getting in trouble, making Noah look like a shit parent…

"You," he slurred. He pointed at Stiles with the bottle in his hand. "You."

"Dad… "

What right did the little shit have to have Claudia's eyes, the same color, all doe-eyed just like her? Like Noah needed the reminder she wasn't there. And he needed to buzz his goddamn hair again. Noah could see the color, the chestnut color just like Claudia's –

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked. "Did something happen at the station?"

"Did something happen," Noah repeated with a nasty laugh. "Argent's wife offed herself. That's a hell of thing."

"Allison's mom… " Stiles looked sick. "Why?"

"Why the fuck do you think I'd know? I'm just some incompetent hick sheriff, couldn't find his ass with both hands – It's you, it's all you!" Noah shouted. 

"No, dad, don't – "

"How the hell was I supposed to raise a stupid kid on my own!?" Noah shouted at him. "Every damn day I saw her in that hospital dying and leaving me with you! It's you. You wrecked my life." He flinched at the way Stiles' lips quivered, the gloss of tears in his eyes, it was all a gut punch. He'd just done that. "You little bastard," he mumbled and turned so he didn't have to look at Stiles. "Get out. Go on. You're killing me. Just get out."

"Dad – "

Noah spun and threw the bottle. It smashed against the door jamb, inches from Stiles' face, splashing liquor over the arm he threw up to protect himself.

He couldn't gather his thoughts enough to say anything, shocked by his own action, and then Stiles bolted. Noah tried to stumble after him, but his stomach rebelled and fell to his knees, puking on the kitchen floor. The grinding rattle of the Jeep revved high in the driveway. It peeled out and accelerated away far too fast for a residential street.

Noah began heaving again.

~~~

Stiles bolted out of the house with the sounds of shattering glass and his father's words still in his ears. He didn't consciously remember getting in his Jeep or driving away. Instead, he found himself driving over in a part of town he'd never paid attention to before. Taillights and streetlights and porch lights and headlights all splintered and blinded him through the tears.

He pulled over, jamming on the brakes hard when his front tire hit the curb, and stalling out a foot from a garbage can.

The sobs took over then. He couldn't see and he couldn't breathe. God. His dad hated him. Had always hated him, because he was such spaz, so disappointing; his mom had hated him too, that's why she forgot who he was, why she slapped him and tried to get rid of him at the mall. His dad could have been happy again if he hadn't been stuck with _Stile_ s…

He was the reason his dad drank until he passed out and worked double shifts, just so he didn't have be around Stiles.

He curled forward, arms over the Jeep's steering wheel, and tried to breathe through how much he hurt.

He couldn't go home, not tonight, God, maybe not ever. Maybe that's what his dad had meant. _Get out._ Stiles started to shake. Where would he go? All his mom's relatives were dead or in Poland and his grandfather was an old folk's home. He wasn't even supposed to know that, but he'd snooped through his dad's desk at home and found a letter from the home about Elias Stilinski. His dad never talked about him, Stiles had never met him and hadn't even known he was alive before.

Hands shaking, he fumbled for his phone. Scott. Scott would help. Maybe even let Stiles sleep on the floor in his room, even if his mom didn't really like Stiles that much. She wouldn't have to know.

He'd come over before when his dad was drunk. Melissa put up with it because Scott had always come to their house when she and Scott's dad were fighting.

Scott's number was right after his dad's in his favorite contacts. Stiles whimpered as he made sure he didn't touch the wrong number.

"Pick up, Scott, pick up, please," he chanted in a snot-choked voice.

He let the call ring and ring until it went to voicemail and Scott cheerily said he was busy but would call back. It was a lie. Scott never called back. Stiles didn't think Scott ever even checked his voicemail.

Okay, Scott wasn't answering his phone. He did that. Stiles could still go to his house. Scott would be there and let him in. And Melissa would probably let him in even if Scott wasn't, after they'd bonding over Scott being a werewolf who needed a full timekeeper. She'd been mad at Scott, not him, for once.

A horrible thought hit him. What if Melissa had thrown Scott out because he was a werewolf?

No. No, Scott would have told him.

Stiles made himself count breaths in and out until he could start the Jeep again and navigate to the McCall house.

It was dark though and Melissa's car was gone. She was on another night shift. He tried calling Scott. Voicemail again. He knocked on the door. Scott had to hear him, Scott was a freaking werewolf now, he could hear Allison across the entire school and Stiles was right outside.

"Scott, come on, please, please, I need to talk to you. I need some place to go. My dad's drinking again and he threw me out," he whisper-yelled at the McCall's back door.

Scott wasn't there. Scott wasn't there, Stiles told himself. He wasn't ignoring Stiles because he was mad at him and blamed him for his mom finding out what he was. For him being a werewolf at all.

Stiles walked back to his Jeep with a hollow growing inside him. His dad hated him, his best friend hated him, no one else even gave a damn if he disappeared. No, most of them would be happier if he vanished. _Everyone_ knew they'd be better off if Stiles was just gone.

He got in the Jeep and drove aimlessly. He couldn't remember when the new curfew was, not that he cared. Maybe one his dad's deputies would pull him over. He could sleep in one of the holding cells. Except they wouldn't want him at the station either. They all probably pitied his dad, but they wouldn't want Stiles there, annoying them, and he didn't want to explain why he wasn't at his house. That would just embarrass his dad. One more mark in the con column of Why Keep Stiles Around?

He finally pulled into the parking lot in front of Casa Pollo. It was mostly empty except for a semi-familiar black Camaro. Most everything else was closed, except the office of the Comfort Inn and the one all-night gas station at the end of the block. It cost more but Stiles had been going there to fill up the Jeep since he found the attendant smeared all over the bathroom at his favorite station.

He stared at the lit-up sign and fluorescent lit empty spaces in front of the pumps. The Jeep's engine ticked as it cooled off.

Maybe he could just pull into the parking lot of the hotel and sleep in the Jeep there? Ugh, no. The FBI agents were all staying there. They'd see the Jeep and wonder.

He was starting to understand why Derek had camped in the ruins of his family's house. It made him shiver though, thinking about it.

The knock on his window made Stiles jerk. He hit his elbow against the steering wheel and screeched before he recognized Derek Hale peering at him through the glass. His brows were drawn together, but he looked more concerned than angry.

Stiles contemplated ignoring him, starting the Jeep and driving away, but Derek would probably follow him. Reluctantly, he cranked his window down. "Heeey. Derek. Fancy meeting you here. Sudden yen for a midnight enchilada snack?" He sounded like shit, all hoarse and choked up from crying, and a deaf man would have noticed never mind Mr. Supernatural Hearing.

"Something like that," Derek replied. He sniffed and frowned a little more. "Were you looking for me? Are you hurt? Did something happen?"

"What, no, why, n—nothing," Stiles blurted. "Why?"

"Because the inside of your Jeep reeks of fear and hurt."

Well, shit. He'd accuse Derek of being overly invasive with the werewolf nose, but again, the blind and deaf guy could probably tell Stiles had been crying.

"I can't find Scott."

"I don't think that would make you cry," Derek said matter-of-factly. "Scott's at Deaton's. The Argents tried to kill him. What happened to you?"

"Nothing supernatural," Stiles assured him. "Just – Scott? Is he okay?"

"He will be. You should go home."

"Yeah," he agreed, and under his breath, _"except I can't."_

Derek stilled in that way he had that always made the hairs on Stiles' arms stand up, that way that reminded him that Derek wasn't really human, and there was an apex predator looking at him behind those pale eyes. Evaluating him as prey or threat. "Stiles."

Stiles looked away and then down and bit his lip.

_"Stiles."_

"My dad sort of threw me out," he whispered.

Derek growled. "He what?"

"He's drunk and he threw me out," Stiles repeated. "He threw a bottle of whiskey at me and he blames me for finding dead bodies, and he told me to get out. I tried to find Scott, but he wasn't home and he's not answering his phone… so I've just been driving around." He hunched his shoulders in shame at the revelation. Derek was going to laugh at him now. He was pathetic.

"Fuck," Derek said quietly. Stiles was looking down, but he caught the red flare of his eyes reflected from the Jeep's dashboard.

"I'm sorry."

"No." Derek grabbed Stiles' shoulder through the open window and shook him lightly. "Look at me."

"What?" Stiles choked out. He was going to start crying again and he wished Derek would just go away.

"You're going to follow me back to the den. You can stay there tonight and figure out things in the morning. Okay?"

Stiles' mouth fell open. He didn't even know what to say. Derek was going to let him stay at his depot? Wait, did that mean Stiles was pack? "Do you even want me there?" he asked stupidly.

Derek raised his eyebrows. "No. I'm going to lure you out in the woods and murder you."

"Ha ha," Stiles said. "You kind of look like a serial killer. Or male super model. Are there male super models? Is that a thing?"

Derek gave him a flat look.

"Just follow me. You can eat with me and the rest of the pack."

"Oh goodie."

Derek shrugged. "Or you can sit in the Jeep and feel sorry for yourself all night and hope whoever is killing people in town doesn't find you."

Stiles blinked because he hadn't even thought about that. He turned the key in the ignition. "Right behind you."

~~~

The depot sat on the outskirts of town. It had originally serviced the logging industry. The mills shut down one by one through the eighties and nineties, until there was nothing to ship out of Beacon Hills. Now the tracks were rusted and the ties rotted so far a modern train couldn't pass. Timber came down the old, winding, two-lane highway on trucks, rolling west toward Eureka or north to Oregon. Even those were rare, though, and the heavy trees discouraged cattle ranchers from renting grazing rights from the BLM.

It left acres of empty warehouses, cattle yards, and closed service businesses, all of it fenced off and half forgotten, like Beacon Hills itself, the forest creeping closer in every year. Nature taking back the scars of tarmac and fuel with blackberry, star thistle, digger pine, redbud and weeds.

Stiles followed Derek's Camaro through the confusing labyrinth of hollowed out buildings to the open loading bay gaping like a toothless jaw. There were no lights outside.

Derek drove inside, though, and Stiles steered the Jeep after the red of his tail lights. He parked when the Camaro's brake lights flared and laughed to himself at how much they reminded him of the alpha's eyes.

Brake light eyes.

It might be smarter to keep that to himself. He wasn't actively suicidal yet. Imagining Derek's expression, though, was a great distraction from the shitstorm that was his own life. He couldn't even really blame it on werewolves. His mom died and his dad drank and no one really liked him except Scott long before Peter Hale decided he'd start biting people as part of his revenge plan.

The Camaro's lights went off, so Stiles shut off the Jeep. No use burning gas and filling up the building with carbon monoxide. Though it wouldn't be the worst way to go. Go to sleep and then smother while you were as you ran out of oxygen thanks to your traitorous blood cells pairing up with the carbon monoxide molecules instead of nice guy oxygen. Leave a bright pink corpse.

Stiles dug his fingernails into his palms as hard as he could. They weren't long enough to do more than press crescents into his skin. He couldn't make himself bleed the way a werewolf could. He took a hitching breath and then another and stared into the darkness beyond the windshield. He couldn't see a thing, not even his reflection.

A soft thump on the Jeep's hood made him jump.

"Stiles," Derek said from outside the driver's door. Stiles took another breath and looked into crimson irises set in a black on black silhouette.

Hand shaking, he opened the door and half fell out. The interior light was almost blinding after the dark, but so welcome. The darkness was giving him vertigo. Derek caught his arm and steadied him. He had a paper bag full of food that smelled fantastic and had left another sitting on the Jeep's hood.

"Thanks, dude," Stiles mumbled. "I can't see anything."

"Shit," Derek said.

"Hey, the interior light on your car didn't come on."

"I took the bulb out."

"Right, because you don't need it."

"Because I don't want anyone to see me get in and out. A headshot, even without wolfsbane, will kill a werewolf just like anyone else."

Stiles knew about that from reading, but he'd never really connected it to real life. "Your life, dude, your life."

Derek gave out a little huff and squeezed Stiles' arm lightly.

"Okay, okay," Stiles said and reached into the Jeep. "I've got a flashlight. Just a sec." He groped under the driver's set for it, feeling through empty wrappers, what was probably a dirty sock, CD cases, and a tube of sunscreen until he found the heavy duty, four cell Maglight his dad had given him, the same sort all the deputies had. Long and heavy enough you could hit someone with it.

The steel was cold under his hands. He wondered if the batteries were still good before turning it on. He refused to think about his dad. He felt like if he cried any more, he'd start throwing up.

The light flashed on super bright.

Stiles swung it around, the beam catching Derek's face from underneath and making him squinch his eyes shut. "Sorry, sorry."

Derek blinked and scooped up the other bag. "Come on, the food's getting cold."

Stiles followed him past old subway cars and flatbed rail cars meant for cargo containers and into the open section where Isaac, Erica, and Boyd were all lounging on scrounged furniture. In the dark, because fucking werewolves. Their eyes all flashed yellow bright when the flashlight hit them and Erica did the classic vampire arm before her face as she turned away, blond hair tumbling.

"Turn on the lights," Derek said.

There was a fumble and click then a battery LED lantern lit a circle that included them all.

"What's he doing here?" Isaac asked.

"I invited him to dinner," Derek said, dust dry.

Boyd raised an eyebrow but nodded to Stiles. No one commented if they noticed he'd been crying like a little bitch.

"Food!" Erica exclaimed and clapped. "Gimme, gimme. I'm starving."

Stiles started to tease her that she should have ate dinner at home, but snapped his mouth shut. Maybe her home life was as fucked as his. Maybe the epilepsy wasn't the only reason she took the Bite. Instead he turned off the flashlight and set it down on a giant spool for cable that had been repurposed into a table.

Derek shared out the food to each of them, then set out more containers that he must have ordered for himself. "What do you like?" he asked in his soft voice. "There's chicken enchiladas, tamales, rice, refried beans, tortillas, sopapillas and churros – "

Erica made a happy moaning sound around the food she'd already stuffed in her mouth, nodding her approval.

"Enchiladas are great," Stiles said quickly. He didn't know if he really wanted to eat or not.

Derek pushed the container his way

"Cold drinks in the ice chest," Boyd said and pushed it toward Stiles with his foot. He had a giant burrito in his hand.

Stiles opened it and found a Mountain Dew for himself.

"Get me a Dr. Pepper," Isaac said.

He had to fish through the ice, his fingertips starting to burn with the cold, before he found a can and tossed it. Isaac snatched it out of the air easily. "Derek?" Stiles asked.

"Whatever's there," Derek said indifferently.

Stiles stirred through the ice and found him a glass bottle of some fancy water. He figured that was Derek's.

They ate in near silence. Stiles watched as Erica consumed more than Isaac and Boyd in awe, because they both ate even more than Scott did. Scott had always been a blackhole when it came to food and becoming a werewolf had made him eat even more. But Boyd, Boyd could get an international ranking. He was competition level.

"Try these," Derek said. Derek seemed to eat more like a normal person. Maybe because he'd given half his food to Stiles or because he wasn't a teenager.

Stiles peered at the contents of the Styrofoam container. Derek had lived in New York. He'd probably tried all sorts of weird cuisines. But Casa Pollo probably didn't offer anything too strange on their menu. Derek wouldn't be offering him stewed sheep eyeballs or grasshopper paste.

"Fried plantains."

Cautiously, Stiles stuck his plastic fork in one and conveyed it to his mouth. Ohhhh. Yeah. Those were good. He missed fried food, but he tried to not have it at home.

The food turned tasteless. Guess he wouldn't be pestering his dad to eat healthier any longer.

He picked at the food a little longer anyway, then pushed it back toward Derek. Derek finished it without comment.

Stiles was drooping. Exhaustion hit him like a baseball bat to the head and he realized he just ached everywhere.

Derek was watching him. He had such a stern mouth, but when it softened, when he wasn't glaring and defensive, he looked vulnerable. Gentle. Maybe he scowled all the time to keep everyone from seeing that.

When Stiles' eyelids drooped shut for the fourth time, he blinked them open to Derek standing beside him, holding out his hand. "You can use my bed."

"You have a bed?"

Derek shrugged. "A mattress and there's a sleeping bag if you get cold."

"Where're you going to sleep?"

"I don't sleep much."

Stiles let Derek lead him to one of the subway cars. The seats had been ripped out and a mattress sat on the floor in their places. It was covered in sheets though and throw blankets and pillows. Those had to be from Erica. No one else Derek even _knew_ would think of them. Except Lydia, of course, but she wouldn't set foot in this testament to potential tetanus, nor did Derek really know her except through Jackson. Though she had been to the depot.

"Really, where are you going to sleep?"

Derek lifted his shoulder then gestured to a bench running down the side of the car.

How did subway cars end up in Beacon Hills? Did someone hook them all up and bring them here to abandon them instead of hauling them to junkyard?

"Dude, no," Stiles said. A mattress in a disused subway car sort of sucked, but it was way better than a dirty plastic bench in said subway car. He didn't think that bench was wide enough to support Derek's shoulders, for one thing. "I can't steal your bed."

Derek looked amused. "You want to share?" Because it obviously didn't occur to him that he could leave Stiles to sleep on the bench.

"Why not?" Stiles asked with a shrug. He had Scott had shared a bed more times than Stiles could count. "I don't think you're going to ravage my sexy self in my sleep."

He smiled because he caught that little huff of amusement again.

"Take your shoes off," Derek told him.

"Not to sound all demanding or anything, but does this place have plumbing and could I visit it?" He might joke about the werewolves chasing bunnies in the woods, but, somehow, he couldn't imagine Erica or any of them taking a squat out in the Preserve.

"Yes, the bathroom works," Derek told him. "Feel better?" He gestured and Stiles followed.

"Yes, but not like I'd feel if you had running hot water. Why are you living like this again?"

"Because if I rent some place the Argents will find it."

"You could get an apartment someplace really public or close to the police station?"

Derek gave him a flat look. "Then the hunters could put it under surveillance and identify all of my betas."

"Okay, point. This seems so shitty."

"Dead's worse."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"It's only overnight," Derek told him. "You'll survive."

Stiles wasn't thinking about himself though. There had to be some way to get Derek into a decent living space and hide him and the others from the Argents and their goons. Squatting in abandoned buildings was not acceptable as a long-term solution, because it wasn't a solution. He wanted to invite him and the others to crash at his house, but he didn't have a house, did he? It was his dad's house and he had no idea if he'd be able to go back.

The thought made his breath hitch again.

"He'll sober up and take it back," Derek said gently, guessing accurately at Stiles' thoughts. "Or he won't even remember."

Great, that would mean his dad had gotten black-out drunk again. He hadn't done that for four or five years except on his wedding anniversary.

Stiles did what he needed to in the surprisingly clean bathroom – noticed the lack of urinals and realized it had been the ladies' room, which explained a lot – washed his hands in freezing cold water with the soap that looked like it had been lifted from a motel and resorted to scrubbing at his teeth with a finger, then shut off the little battery light Derek had switched on for him, and stumbled his way back to Derek's bed.

Everything was awful and he didn't have his pillow, but werewolves were warm. He was too tired to think any more. He'd figure out his disaster of a life tomorrow. Derek was on his side, facing away from him. Stiles pressed his back to Derek's and fell out of consciousness.


	4. Part Four

**~~~November 17, 2012~~~**

  **Waxing Half Moon**

  

He called Melissa because he knew Scott should be in school. If she didn't know where his son was, then he'd try the school secretary and find out if Stiles was there.

Stiles had stayed over with Scott more than once, after all, and Melissa seemed kindlier inclined toward him the last time Noah saw her. There was nothing to worry about. He'd overindulged a little last night. He'd make it up to Stiles, whatever he'd said.

"Melissa," he said when she answered, sounding harried as always.

"What's Scott done?" she asked. The sharp sound of fear came clear through the phone.

"Nothing that I know of," Noah said slowly. "I called to ask if Stiles stayed over with him last night."

Melissa was silent a long moment. "Pickling your liver again?"

"Hey, I don't tell you how to raise your son."

"A good thing since my son doesn't have to hide out at someone else's place," she snapped. Melissa didn't tolerate assholes in her life any longer. "Anyway, I can't tell you. I worked the overnight. Scott had already gone to school when I got in and I left at noon."

"You're going to kill yourself working so many doubles," he told her.

"Well, I won't die in debt at least," she said with a tired laugh. "He must have gone to school or they'd have called you."

"You'd think, but that school is so screwed up, I wonder if anyone would notice if the entire marching band disappeared."

"They don't have a marching band."

"Exactly."

Her laughter was unsettling, knowing, bitterer than his joke merited.

Noah rubbed his hand through his hair, though he knew it made it stand up in a dozen directions. That was a reason he'd taken Stiles to the barber for a buzzcut after Claudia's death. Not that his hair, like his eyes, were exactly like hers and Noah couldn't handle it. He had Noah's cowlicks and couldn't comb his own hair. The buzzcut was practical.

"Okay, sorry to interrupt your day, Mel. If you see him, tell him to get his ass home."

She was silent and he waited for her assent, but after another weighted pause, she just hung up on him.

"God damn it, Stiles," he muttered and looked up the number for high school front office.

"Yes, he was here for his first class," Beverley Wallander told him. "Why?"

"I had to come into work early," Noah lied, "and I wanted to make sure he didn't sleep through his alarm and skip." He was the one who slept through his alarm. "All right, thank you, sorry for the bother."

"No problem, Sheriff."

He set down the phone and sank back in his seat. Well, wherever Stiles had been overnight, he was where he was supposed to be now.

The pounding headache he was chalking up to stress and not a hangover eased off a little. He managed to get through some of his endless paperwork. A knock on the door sent a stab of pain through his temple. He looked up and tried to school his grimace into a more welcoming expression for Agent Hotchner.

"Sheriff Stilinski," Hotchner said seriously. Hotchner was dour most of the time, but there was a note of reluctance in his expression that fed a sense of apprehension in Noah.

"Something you need?" he asked.

"We'd like to search your son's room."

Noah set down his pen.

"You think he's involved," he said roughly.

"We could just as easily rule that out," Hotchner pointed out.

But he didn't think so, Noah thought. He sucked in a deep breath. Stiles. He had no idea what Stiles might be involved in. He could go weeks barely doing more than banging on the kid's door to make sure he got up in time to go to school. He knew what Stiles wanted him to know. Until the last few months that had been anything and everything that passed through Stiles' head. Or so it had seemed, but Noah had to wonder how much of that was a performance.

God, if only Claudia was alive. She'd have kept him from fucking up so badly with their son.

What if Stiles was involved somehow? If it was some weird cult or teenage killing pact?

"Okay," he said hoarsely. "Okay." He pushed himself back from the desk. "I'm going with you, but you have my permission."

Hotchner nodded to him. "Thank you."

Noah thought about the mess of glass and whiskey he'd cleaned up this morning. He'd taken it all out to the dumpster and sprayed carpet cleaner on the rug, but it had still reeked when he left. He hoped the house had aired out through the windows he'd left open when he'd left.

He had worse worries than what the profilers would think if they smelled booze in his house, though. They thought Stiles had something to do with these killings and Noah couldn't pretend he didn't see the evidence that pointed at his son. He'd been denying it to himself. His deputies were all probably blinded by their familiarity with Stiles. None of them were going to point a finger at the Sheriff's son.

"Let's go then," he said wearily. "Before Stiles gets out of school."

~~~

 

Stilinski chose to remain downstairs while Reid and Emily searched his son's bedroom. Emily didn't blame him for that.

It looked much like most teenage boys' rooms. A couple posters on the walls that must have dated back to middle school. Narrow bed meant only for one, sloppily made up. Emily smirked when Reid open the bed-stand drawer and she spotted the supplies there: lube and lotion tissues. There was even a handful of different condoms, probably handed out in health class or somewhere else that offered them free. No porn mags, but he probably had that on his laptop or the mish-mash desktop set up on his desk. Dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, clean clothes in a pile on his dresser, sports gear and shoes spilling out of his closet.

Morgan would have been a better choice for this, Emily thought as she checked the waste basket, grateful to find only some crumpled papers and empty snack wrappers. He'd been a cop. He knew how to toss a room for contraband.

The first thing she noticed that didn't fit were the book cases. Not only did Stiles have more of those than most boys his age, but they were stuffed, two books deep in places, and there were stacks in the corners and beside his bed.

The second was the nature of the books. There were numerous used copies of popular and academic works on the occult, folklore, magic, supernatural creatures, herbology. Poisonous plants and their effects next to New Age healing, emergency field medicine between a cheaply bound thesis on therianthropy – Reid would know what that was, Emily didn't – and a history of druids in Europe. Library books. New books. Text books and school books were shoved in the mix willy-nilly. Books that looked like they belonged in museums, bound in leather and wood, several with actual locks. Emily pulled out one thick volume. It was written in a language she didn't recognize. The pages inside were vellum, the contents inked by hand.

"Reid," she said, "come over here."

Reid abandoned the dresser drawers and peered at the book. "Sanskrit," he identified in surprise.

Emily looked at the books. "What the hell is he doing with these? For that matter, where did he get them?"

Reid took the book and examined it. There was no copyright page, no author or title, but there was a blank page with a symbol at the front.

"A triskele," Reid said.

He began looking at the other antique tomes. Some had the triskele on the spine, one had it on the cover, others had it inked on an interior page. Some didn't. One had a moon and stars. Another had a fleur-de-lis with an arrow hidden among its lines. Only a few were even in something like English and that some old version Emily barely recognized. Some they couldn't open without breaking the locks. Emily hadn't seen any keys that would fit them.

"I'd say they came from someone's library."

"Who?"

Reid looked at the triskele. "Hale? Or the Hale family?"

Emily snapped her fingers. "I saw this on the grave stones in the Hale plot."

"Hale has one tattooed on his back too," Reid said. "It's in his file under identifying marks."

"Huh."

"You know, I'm starting to understand what Dave means about small towns," Emily said. "Everyone's connected and there's no way to figure out what is relevant and what's background noise."

She looked at the desktop. Not much chance she could do anything with it, but it was running. Emily tapped a key to wake it up. Just like she'd suspected, the screen demanded a password. "Any guesses?" she asked Reid and she went through the desk. Stiles wasn't the sort to keep his passwords at hand though.

"No. If he's smart, he uses a random number generator to create a string that really can't be discovered through deductions based on personality or history."

Emily grinned at Reid, who had gone back to the bed and was examining the headboard. "Garcia's been lecturing again?"

"Ranting, actually."

Reid pulled a metal tin out. A Currier and Ives scene decorated the lid. Well, where would a kid get a cigar box these days, after all?

"Christmas cookies?" Emily asked.

He pried the lid open and turned the box so she could see the contents. Emily frowned it. A suede jewelry bag, dyed deep royal blue, a large Ziploc of blackened – "Is that sawdust?" Emily asked. – something, and a second Ziploc with a glass jar inside. The jar held a pale purple powder and was sealed with tape. The bag with the jar had a sloppy skull-and-crossbones drawn on it and a frightening reminder: Gloves and Mask! As if to confirm, a crumpled pair of nitrile gloves and a dust mask lay beneath the bag and jar.

"Don't open it," Emily warned. They were both gloved up but weren't prepared for anything hazardous otherwise.

"Not a chance," Reid agreed.

Reid opened the jewelry bag and upended it. The contents tumbled into his palm. Ammunition. No two examples the same. They were all different calibers. Handgun loads and rifle cartridges. Each of them had a Post-it taped to it with a label. Emily plucked up a .30-06 cartridge. The green paper taped to it read Nordic Blue. When she turned it in her fingers an etching on the side caught the light.

A tiny fleur-de-lis.

Reid held up another cartridge. "7.65mm. It's a handload."

Emily looked at hers. "This one too." The lead tip had a crosshatch incised so it would peel back on impact and fragment. She wondered if there wasn't a nasty surprise beneath the lead.

"This one says Yellow," Reid remarked. He turned it and Emily saw a flower skull etched on it. "It's in the same artistic vein as Mexican Day of the Dead art."

"I just saw that," she said. She plucked the cartridge from Reid and went back to the bookshelves, pulling out a slim volume she'd paged through. She opened it and quickly found both the fleur-de-lis and the skull. The book had been in a fire and the lower halves of its pages were singed and unreadable. The illustrations remained, though, some with a caption. 'Silver' above the French iris and Calaveras beneath the skull. She showed Reid then read the title.

_A complet compendium of the sigils and insignia of North American and European hunter clans._

"The rest of these are handloads too," Reid said. "And I'd say not done by the same person, but I'm not an expert in the forensic identification of ammunition."

"If the Bureau doesn't have someone who is, I'll bet BATF will," Emily said.

The rest of the search came up mostly empty. They found a large, torn up Henley with a bleached-out stain that might have been blood stuffed in the bottom of a gym bag under several socks that smelled horrendous. The shirt had been washed too many times for even the best tech to get anything useful from it. Clorox was a cheap and reliable way to degrade DNA as well as disinfect.

The oversized corkboard under Stile's bed had them both gaping, it was so much like the whiteboards and maps they had up at the station. He'd used low-resolution printouts, newspaper clippings, copies that looked suspiciously like they came from Sheriff's Department files, Post-Its, and photographs, tacked them up and run colored strings between them.

"Wow," Reid murmured.

Emily's first thought was murder wall, but a second look changed her mind. Case layout. Stiles had put together the connections they'd made along with others that made no apparent sense. He was looking for the pattern, just like the BAU did. He had the phases of the moon attached to every murder.

He had a picture of Kate Argent linked to mugshots of Unger, Reddick, and Baumann, Myer's license photo, and Adrian Harris. All of them tied to the Hale fire. He had her linked to Derek Hale with a different colored string and another one showing her ties to Gerard, Chris, Victoria and Allison Argent. Allison Argent linked to Scott McCall and Stiles had himself on the board too. But at the center he had an empty page that just said The Alpha. Red strings ran from the Alpha to Laura Hale, Unger, Reddick, Baumann and Myers and thick pink one linked Scott to the unnamed person. He'd teased a thin thread of the same yarn to link himself to the Alpha too. He'd braided the family color to tie himself to Scott and his father, to a lesser extent to Melissa and then surprisingly direct tie to Derek Hale in a lighter shade.

There were names and faces on the board the BAU hadn't encountered. Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd. The first three were satellites of Derek Hale, along with Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin, but Whittemore and Martin were tied to the alpha, Whittemore by the same yarn as McCall. A huge question mark had been sharpied next to Lydia Martin's picture. She and Jackson tied to Derek Hale with thinner strands in the same color as the tertiary group that weren't tied into anyone else. Some people were tied together with more than one color.

A line from the Alpha went to a picture of a Komodo dragon that had been labeled kanima. Kanima had killing lines stretching to Briggs, Harris, pieces of paper that said Bennett and Omega, and Reed Schall. Fascinatingly, Reed Schall linked to a Satomi Ito and Satomi Ito had a thread which ran to Talia Hale. Julia Baccari was there as Jennifer Webb with only a thin connection to Peter Hale, so Stiles didn't know about her. There were black tacks for the dead, blue ones for almost everyone alive. Talia, Peter, Laura and Derek all got red tacks and so did Ito. Could she be related to them?

Emily took a series of pictures of the board and sent them to Garcia.

"What do you make of it?" she asked Reid.

"He's using colors to indicate the type of connection and heavier strings to denote the strength of a connection. The tack colors also indicate something, but it isn't the obvious." Reid looked pleased with the mystery. Something that wasn't obvious to him was a real mystery.

"Okay." Emily frowned at the board, then gasped. "Reid. Look."

Stiles had Kate Argent on the board, linked to her family of course, but also to the Hales and Derek. A post-it was tacked below her name. Kate Da Silva. That name had come up before. Kate Da Silva linked to Adrian Harris and the dead arsonists.

Reid touched the post-it. "Kate Da Silva was a substitute swim coach six years ago. Derek Hale was on the team. If this is right, Harris was connected to the fire too."

"If this is right, Kate Da Silva was Kate Argent."

Reid smiled unhappily. "Silva, Argent… "

Emily wanted to slap herself for missing the obvious. Of course. Silver. "Garcia will find out." She connected to Garcia and updated her on their suspicion.

Reid pointed to the sheet that just said _Alpha_. "Alpha is our unsub. Either Kate returned to lure the Hales back and decided to tie up her loose ends or the unsub found out who killed the Hale family and set out to take revenge, luring Kate back by offering up the last Hales as bait."

Emily looked at the board. "Stiles thinks the unsub wanted revenge."

"Statistically, it's more likely that the unsub is the same person who killed before, i.e. Kate," Reid said.

"And the lizard?" Emily asked dryly.

"A copycat or a partner possibly," Reid said. "it would explain the inconsistencies. The first unsub finished with Peter Hale – another reason Kate Argent is the better suspect since someone after revenge would have targeted her first and foremost – "

"Maybe they were saving the best for last," Emily suggested.

Reid considered that. "Maybe. And maybe there are mistaken assumptions here," he waved at the board, "but this is still very impressive given the resources this kid is working."

"Think he'd make a good agent?" Emily asked impishly.

Reid shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. "Do I?" he asked uncertainly.

"Spence, you're the best of us. How many cases have we solved because of you or Garcia? A hell of lot more than the clean-cut, All-American agents who only use their brains to keep the wind from whistling between their ears," Emily assured him.

Reid gave her his shy, happy smile.

He looked around the bedroom. "He could be good," he admitted, "if he isn't involved with the unsubs."

"Okay, the stuff in the box is suggestive, but not damning," Emily said. There were no bladed weapons, nothing like the unsub's claw weapon. Stiles certainly didn't have any weapons chambered for the odd selection of ammunition. None of it fit any of the Sheriff's registered weapons and if the Sheriff had any 'throwdown' weapons they were more likely to be small caliber, cheap pistols, not military grade long guns. "The board looks like he's trying to figure out the identity of the unsub."

"We need to interview him again," Reid said. "If we confront him with this, I think he'll tell us what he knows."

Or clam up completely, Emily didn't say, eyeing the thick thread between the alpha and Scott McCall.

"He already knows who the first unsub is. Look at the positioning of everything on the board, the way most of it is pushed to the left side and the picture of the Komodo dragon is centered," Reid said. "That's what he's working on."

A second unsub. Emily hoped to God the kid was wrong, but this case had become such a clusterfuck she expected he wasn't. They'd all been tossing the idea back forth back at the station, over meals, and even at the hotel. The differences between the September kills and the new set, the accelerating loss of control… It pointed to a copycat or a partner. Which meant they had to look at anyone who had an alibi for some of the killings all over again.

"I think we should talk to McCall again too," she said.

"We can tell Hotch as soon as we get back to the station."

"Yeah, okay."

Emily wasn't looking forward to the next part.

They took the tin and its contents downstairs and asked Stilinski if he knew anything about them. He looked angry and frightened as he denied any knowledge.

"What the hell is that?"

"We're going to send it to Sacramento for tests and maybe find where the ammo was made," Emily explained.

Stilinski scrubbed at his face. "I understand," he said, then straightened his shoulders. "You'll need to search the rest of the house and the garage, along with Stiles' Jeep. You have my permission."

Reid took out his phone. "I'll get Morgan and Rossi to join us."

"Thank you," Emily told Stilinski gently as she could.

He looked around the house blindly, like he didn't know it any longer. "What the hell is happening in this town? Then he straightened his shoulders and added grimly, "I have to get back to the station. We had a nasty suicide yesterday. Woman disemboweled herself in her daughter's bedroom."

Emily winced.

"Who was it?" Reid asked curiously. He was looking at a photograph of Stilinski's wife. Another dead woman. Their son looked very much like her.

"Victoria Argent."

Stilinski left. Emily and Reid stared at each other. Emily knew her eyes were wide and her mouth a little parted. No way was that coincidence. "Do you think she knew something she couldn't live with?" she asked.

~~~

 

Gerard huffed and coughed, unable to catch his breath. It didn't wipe the cruel twist of his lips. Even allowing Kate to finally hack the werewolf in two didn't. He enjoyed nothing more than just this: pain and terror. No whiskey or drug, not even sex, compared to the thrill of being the one who smothered the spark of life.

There was something _magical_ about the instant between life and inevitable death. He could almost taste the power in the liminal instant before their eyes went blank.

This one had been worthless too, just another omega, albeit more successful than some, hiding its monstrousness among the sheep.

DeMarco Montana.

A liquor distributor of all things. There was an irony to that, since werewolves couldn't get drunk or high normally.

Gerard coughed again, so hard his chest ached, and had to wipe at his lips with a handkerchief. The spots of blood were a constant now.

He needed that alpha, damn it!

There were at least two of them and he'd had no luck in either catching Hale or the old woman, even with his pet.

Frustration and fear soured the high he'd just experienced.

"Clean the god damn sword, Kate," he snapped at her. "I taught you better."

He'd have to kill her once he was done, which was a shame. He'd put years into shaping Kate into the perfect tool, but she'd become erratic even before the shitshow with Peter Hale.

He could almost thank the dead werewolf. His pet was far more useful and obedient than Kate.

She was still an abomination, though, and had to die.

He'd have to get rid of his worthless son too. Victoria had removed herself from the equation at least. She would have had to go too, once his plan succeeded. Too traditional, too short-sighted, too loyal to Chris and protective of Allison.

Allison, though, was young enough to mold into the perfect huntress, a proper heir to the Argent that defeated the Beast of Gevauden.

~~~

 

Lydia let her mother make her hot cocoa and huddled in her warm robe in the too bright kitchen.

A nightmare about her attack, she told her mother, still feeling the death scream that woke them both bubbling in her throat.

Now that she understood what was happening, she could at least control the urge to go to the body.

Instead, she wrapped her ice-cold fingers around the mug her mom handed her. She even let Natalie hug her. For once, her mother was acting like a mom.

Lydia would make sure the body was found tomorrow.

 

**~~~November 18, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Half Moon**

  

"Hey, baby girl," Morgan said, "what's got you in a tizzy?"

Garcia gave him a flat look. Her mouth turned down. "Oh, other than we're going to miss Thanksgiving, horrible download speeds, and gruesome murders?"

"Can't do anything about downloads, but we'll get Chinese later."

"Oh, God, no, I haven't recovered from the last time. The diner or Mexican, my dark god."

"Whatever you say. What's the real problem?"

"I had a search going. Mysterious fires that burned extraordinarily hot and trapped families inside."

Morgan hated to point it out, but, "There must be a hell of a lot of those."

Garcia nodded. "So many. But I narrowed the parameters. And I got thirty-four that are too much like the Hale fire to be coincidence. Extended families that were all gathered in one place, three communes, an off-season ski lodge, two small apartment buildings and a boarding house. All physically isolated, all with kids. It's awful."

"That's still not – "

Garcia was glaring at him now. Morgan nearly took a step back. Garcia rarely showed her temper, even more rarely toward him.

"Shut up and listen, Agent Morgan," she told him in a low, fierce tone.

"Some of the fires spread too far to tell, but in eleven cases – _eleven_ – a thick line of saw dust was found around the house that burned. In three cases, someone even thought to have a sample analyzed. In all three of those cases, it was from a specific variety of wood, from the Rowan tree. Also known as the Mountain Ash."

"Okay, that's a definite pattern."

"You bet it is, mister. I pulled the file on the Hale fire, and one of the first responders noticed sawdust around the Hales house. It got left out of the final report as 'irrelevant'."

The Hale fire investigation had been botched so badly there was no question it had been deliberate. Missing an arsonist killer's signature was par for the course. Derek felt very little pity for Garrison Myers, though no one deserved to be tortured. No one deserved to die in subsequent fires set by someone who got away with it before because of Myers' greed either. He didn't despise Myers for being greedy, but the man had helped cover up murder. The moral distance between ruling a fire an accident so insurance would pay out and doing so when lives had been lost gaped wider and deeper than the Marianas Trench.

"That's good work," Hotch said from behind and Morgan jerked. Hotch was damned soft-footed.

"Thank you, sir. I wasn't trying to interfere in the investigation, I was correlating data."

"Understood," Hotch reassured her gently.

"Okay, so, I had the fire information open in one window with the dates displayed. I was digging into Gerard Argent and then Kate Argent, like Emily and Reid asked, and I noticed how she'd disappear off the grid – no credit cards, nothing – four or five times a year for weeks. And the dates were right there next to each other, and they overlap exactly. Kate Argent goes off grid and a few weeks later some people are burned and then she pops back up."

Garcia played with one of her necklaces, a big, chunky thing that didn't quite reach her cleavage. She had on a vintage '50s style dress, blue with cherries dotted over it, that offered a lot of her lushness, even with a white bolero sweater over it. Garcia wasn't a fidgeter usually. Usually she had her hands on her keyboards.

"I really dug into her once I noticed that. I used my archival facial recognition search program too and – and I found her in almost all the places where there were fires. Coffee shops, gas stations, motels. She was using fake IDs, cash, and purchased debit cards. She pretended to be a French teacher and substituted for swim coaches or as a lifeguard."

"She went after the kids," Morgan realized in disgust. "Used them as an in."

Garcia nodded frantically. "I found all her aliases. Katherine Sterling, Kay Pewter, Kitty Da Silva, Katie Silvero, Irene Starr, Kathy Gerard, Kathleen De Valet. I ran them and, sir, Katherine Sterling stayed at the Beacon Inn the day before Laura Hale was found. There was a substitute swim teacher at the high school named Kate Da Silva six years ago. It was her. She called in sick the day of the Hale fire and never came back."

"Jesus," Morgan muttered.

"Tell the rest of the team this," Hotch said.

"Okay."

"She's a family annihilator," Morgan said.

"She's something. It's time we formulated our profile. We'll give it as soon as we're agreed," Hotch declared.

Ten minutes later, while they were still consolidating what they knew about the crimes and the new information on Kate Argent, one of Garcia's machines dinged. She pounced on the keyboard and then, after a burst of typing was quiet for several minutes until she murmured, "Oh, that's – that's so wrong."

Morgan rocked back in his seat to look at her profile instead of the back of her fluffy head. She'd put her blond hair in big loose curls today with a rhinestone-decorated headband holding the long tresses away from her face. The overhead lights glared off the monitor in front of her so he couldn't make out what she was looking at.

"Sir," she said to Hotch, "I think you might want to look at this and the Sheriff too."

JJ left her seat to fetch Stilinski from his office. Morgan had the man figured: Stilinski would rather have been in here with them, working the case and listening as they profiled, but as sheriff he had a hundred other responsibilities to see to every day. He devoted a lot of time to helping them even so.

"What is it?" Hotch asked.

They gathered to look at Garcia's monitor. A date and time stamped black-and-white frame from an overhead security cam was frozen. Stilinski and Tara Graeme came in with JJ.

"This is from the Chevron on the north side," Garcia explained. She tapped a key and the security footage from the gas station pumps began moving. "I know you have a BOLO for Derek Hale's car, but I started thinking, he has to get gas somewhere, and people are creatures of habit, so I worked back through the CCTV from all the stations in the area, filtering for the license plate."

They watched as Hale's black Camaro pulled up to a pump. It was late, past midnight according to time displayed at the top of the screen. The angle was bad and the resolution grainy, but they were all experienced at interpreting dash cam footage. Hale, in an oversized leather jacket, began pumping gas into the car.

"Here," Garcia said needlessly.

Four SUVs rushed into the frame, boxing in the Camaro and Hale on all sides. The windows on all the oversized vehicles were illegally blacked out and the license plates were obscured. Three were black, one looked gray on the screen and was likely red.

Hale stayed very still as Chris Argent exited the SUV with the lighter paint job. He didn't move as men armed with shotguns stepped out of the other vehicles and loomed. Argent talked and Morgan wished to God there was sound, but the picture and angle were too bad to even try lip reading. Argent walked to the front of the Camaro and washed its windshield sloppily. Hale turned his head to watch him without moving otherwise.

If Hale hadn't been seen alive since this had been recorded, Morgan would have worried they were about to see a murder or kidnapping. The body language was that malicious.

Hale removed the gas nozzle and capped the car's tank. He had balls, Morgan thought, and was keeping his cool. Argent stopped on the opposite side of the car from Hale, next to the driver's window. He held his hand out and the man standing next to the SUV boxing in the Camaro on that side handed over his shotgun.

Everyone winced as Argent used the butt of the shotgun to smash in the driver's window, then the rear window. A man from the SUV at the other side of the pumps shattered the passenger side window.

"Garcia, get their faces," Rossi said.

"Working on it."

Hale didn't move from where he stood. He'd flinched when Argent broke the first window, but after that the only reaction he betrayed was one hand curling into fist, almost covered by the too long sleeve of his jacket. Hale stayed there until Argent and his goons peeled rubber from the gas station.

The entire incident screamed hate crime harassment.

Hale slumped, then swept the glass out of the car. He peeled the last pieces of the safety glass away from the frames. He used a handful of paper towels and the glass scrubber Argent had dropped to gather up the mess and dump it in garbage can before driving away.

The way Hale carefully cleaned up the mess Argent had left pissed off Morgan more than the vandalism. Those assholes had just threatened the man and assaulted him by proxy and he still thought that all that glass could hurt someone else instead of hitting the gas to get out of there.

"I'm bringing Chris Argent in," Stilinski declared.

"You know, Sheriff," Rossi said thoughtfully, "maybe you should wait on that."

"Why the hell would I – "

"This might provide some leverage when you need it. Surprise him or his buddies if we can find them from it. They don't think Hale will testify against them; he didn't even report it. Someone might crack when they find out they aren't as free and clear as they thought."

"You think Argent's wife knew about this?" Derek questioned.

"I don't think that's why she killed herself, but yes," Hotch replied gravely. "I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. Garcia, look into Chris and Victoria Argent's histories too."

"Deep dive coming up, sir," she promised and began typing.

JJ asked, "Is he one of our unsubs?"

Hotch frowned at the files in his hands. "I don't think so."

"But he's involved," Rossi said. Rossi knew more about organized crime than the rest of them. Mafia. The infamous code of silence that had once made them so fearsome. The FBI had broken it. He recognized something like them here and now. The Families. "The whole family is."

 

**~~~November 20, 2012~~~**

**Half Moon**

 

None of his pack had school. Derek had forgotten about the approaching holiday. No television, staying out of town, and off the internet made it easy. What did he have to be thankful for after all, he reflected bitterly. He didn't want to eat. He didn't even want to get up. He was losing what little he had left and he couldn't see how to stop it.

Stiles offered to take them home with his Jeep and spring for breakfast along the way, since this was the second night he'd spent at the depot. Erica and Boyd had both shaken their heads and headed out together. Derek collapsed back into the nest of blankets and pillows that smelled like Stiles now and stared at the ceiling of the subway car, ignoring Isaac.

The pack bond between him and his betas was weak and fraying away. He couldn't feel Scott and had only a vague sense of Jackson. Erica and Boyd were withdrawing from the pack and Isaac felt almost as distant. He didn't even have a bond with Lydia.

He'd fucked up biting any of them. He'd been operating on blind instinct, hardly better than Peter, because he was a new alpha and he needed a pack. He hadn't chosen teenagers because they were easier to manipulate – he'd argue they were harder to handle than adults would have been – but because he could sense they were good candidates to turn. Teenagers had the best odds.

He'd tried to find people who would benefit from the Bite. Isaac needed strength and healing and a connection to someone who didn't beat the shit out of him, Erica's epilepsy was killing her, and Boyd was so lonely he might as well have been invisible. The pack should have helped all of them and if it hadn't, that was Derek's fault.

He was a shit alpha, he had no idea what he was doing or how to lead anyone.

But he'd never conceived Gerard Argent would show up or had any reason to believe a kanima would begin killing here.

God, if they weren't all under age, he'd take them away, disappear from hunter radar. Find a new territory to make their own. Plenty of land was empty of werewolves thanks to hunters.

He heard Boyd's steps and Erica's heels clicking against the floor and listened as they whispered and stuffed items into packs. When he couldn't deny or delay any longer, he walked out and silently watched them.

Boyd saw him first. Erica realized and turned to give Derek a defiant look. She tossed her blond mane back and stood straighter, clutching a full duffel bag to her chest.

Isaac stayed in the shadows, arms wrapped around himself, silent. He hadn't been included.

"We're leaving."

"I see," Derek acknowledged. He crossed his arms.

"This isn't what you promised us," Erica said.

"I told you there were hunters."

"But not that they'd be out there every day or that people would be dropping like flies because of some giant lizard creature."

"My knowledge of the future didn't include either," Derek agreed.

"We're getting out of Beacon Hills while we're still alive. We'll find a different pack."

"I won't force you to stay."

Erica sneered at him. "Like you could stop us."

"I could," Derek said, letting the alpha power bleed into his voice and his eyes. "Some alphas would kill you before they let you go." Erica flinched but tried to cover it. Boyd met his gaze. Derek let himself shift back to human normal. He rolled his shoulders, working the tension and kinks out. "I won't."

"Sorry, man," Boyd said.

Erica tugged on Boyd's hand until he followed her out.

"Most packs won't welcome bitten omegas," Derek called. "But roads and hotels are neutral ground. If you want another pack, there's one in Hill Valley."

They didn't answer but he didn't expect them to. He listened until the footsteps and heartbeats were too far away even for his ears.

“Derek?” Isaac asked apprehensively.

“What? You want to go with them? Fine. Get out. I don’t care,” Derek snapped.

Isaac ran out. Derek didn't try to stop him either. Let him go. Back to his father for another beating, if that's what Isaac chose. Derek was nobody's savior, that was clear. He went back to his bed and picked up one of the throw pillows Erica had brought in.

His claws tore the fabric and cheap foam into shreds. He threw all the pillows out after them. It wasn't enough. He shifted into his wolf and hunted rats through the depot for the bloody pleasure of killing something.

All while he waited the thinning bonds to finally snap.

Derek curled into a ball on the bed, still in wolf form, when exhaustion finally overcame him. It was harder every day to find a reason to get up and go on. He was the last Hale, but he was no good.

 

**~~~November 21, 2012~~~**

**Half Moon**

 

"How the hell does all the occult crap tie in?" Morgan griped.

They were all gathered over lunch at the diner. JJ and Reid and Emily had all lobbied for the vegetarian place, but it lacked the room for the whole team and while they were all eating, it was a working lunch. The diner had a massive corner booth in an unfortunate spot on the far side of the aisle to the front door and back next to the restrooms. Servers couldn't see them, but no one could overhear them either.

The diner was festooned with Thanksgiving decorations. Some of the orange and black decorations might have been left over from Halloween. Paper turkeys adorned the tables and a cornucopia of plastic fruit sat next to the register.

No one mentioned that they were going to miss their own holidays thanks to this nightmare case.

The waitress had solved the problem by bringing insulated carafes of coffee, water, and juice and small bell so they could catch her attention. She'd handed Reid the bell with a smile. "Usually it's high school kids killing time back here. I make them come and get me."

Reid had smiled back before she left with their orders then winced when Morgan elbowed him. "Another conquest."

"I didn't do anything."

"We know, baby," Garcia assured him.

Emily put down her fork and reverted to the subject of Stiles Stilinski's book collection. "Maybe it doesn't tie in. Just because Stiles was looking at the occult or looking for it, doesn't mean there is a link. He's just a kid, after all."

"A damn smart one," Rossi remarked.

"JJ?"' Hotch asked.

She reflected on the interviews. "He didn't strike me as a sociopath or focused enough to engineer a series of deaths like this." She shrugged. "Maybe he fooled me."

It seemed unlikely. JJ had done the profiling classes eventually at Hotch's urging. She dealt with 'normal' better than the rest of them and was friendly and relatable, resulting in an openness none of the rest of them got from anyone. Her insights were always worth taking into account.

Maybe it was time to pick Stiles Stilinski up and question him again. He hadn't been home since they searched the Stilinski house, though he had been in school. He wouldn't be as hard to find as Derek Hale, at least.

"What do all of you think?" Hotch asked all of them.

"The Hales were always the targets and Derek Hale, wherever he is hiding, is still in danger," Rossi declared. "The victims between Laura and Peter were chosen to clean up loose ends and confuse the issue. Implicating Hale in them was a bonus."

"McCall and Stiles' accusations?" Emily asked.

"Fortuitous for the killers." Rossi patted a napkin to his mouth and then reached for his coffee.

"Killers," Morgan repeated. "You're sure we have more than one unsub."

"A dominant and a submissive pair," Hotch said.

"I don't think they'll fit that paradigm exactly," Reid spoke up. "More like a commander and a subordinate in the military, with one of them being a teacher or having some kind of seniority on the other, but the second unsub also operates independently." He was thinking of the pattern of fires and bisected bodies that Garcia had uncovered. The fires began six years ago with the Hales, but the killings went back further. "The second unsub is the arsonist."

Hotch nodded at that. "It fits."

"And the killings since Peter Hale?" Morgan asked.

"One or both of them are decompensating," Reid said. "They haven't been able to get Derek Hale and they can't move on. Their compulsions won't let them, it's what drew them back to Beacon Hills."

"They need to kill them all," Rossi commented.

"One of them is no longer following the family annihilation pattern. The frustration of not being able to fulfill their compulsion is exacerbating the need for the reward of killing. That explains the excessive violence of the murders after Peter Hale and the random escalation." Reid poked at his Caesar salad with his fork. He wasn't unhappy with it, just thinking.

"One or both of them can't stop now," Hotch said. "Even if they find Derek Hale, they will continue killing. We have to find and stop them."

"How sure are we these victims are really random?" Emily asked. "What does the killer see in them that we're missing?"

Rossi nodded. "They only appear random."

"Reid, Garcia, I want you to focus on finding links between the recent victims and the Hales or the other fire victims your search uncovered," Hotch directed.

"If it's there, we'll find it, sir," Garcia assured him.

Hotch's phone buzzed. He left the booth and took the call a few steps down the corridor. His posture stiffened as he answered in yes and nos. Emily began shoveling in the last of her blueberry pancakes.

Rossi finished his coffee and blotted his lips, then left the napkin folded beside his plate, reading Emily's body language without effort despite having his back to Hotch.

Hotch walked back, his face grim and set.

"We have another body," he stated. "Victor Lahey was found dead in an empty grave at the cemetery."

"Well, that's convenient," Morgan commented.

Rossi rose and headed for the front counter. "I've got this," he said as he reached for his wallet.

"Put it on the Bureau card," Hotch instructed him.

Morgan pulled out cash for the tip and tucked it under his empty cup and saucer. Morgan never failed to tip.

"I still want you working with Garcia," Hotch told Reid as they walked outside to the vehicles. Rossi joined them. "Dave, we're going to meet the Sheriff at the Lahey house. Prentiss, you and Morgan go to the cemetery, find out what Lahey was doing there."

"How was he found?" Emily asked as she fished the keys to one of the SUVs from her pocket. Morgan tried to reach for them; she glared him until he stepped back with his hands open and up.

"Anonymous call."

"Ah, Dawn Giddin Volff," Morgan commented.

"Or her cousin Nanja M. Bindis," Emily snarked back. "Reid, wasn't there a Lahey on the Stilinski kid's board?"

"Isaac Lahey."

"We'll find out his connection to the victim," Hotch stated. "And the other new names you found."

"Hotch," JJ asked, "where do you want me?"

"The station. This is going to bring in the media. Put together a statement while keeping the details out of it as much as you can."

Rossi chuckled. "Tell her to turn water to wine while she's at it. The unsubs are hitting nearly every night. It's a miracle the major outlets haven't showed up to cover this already."

"Sometimes being in the middle of nowhere pays off," Morgan said.

"They'll show up for a serial killer story," JJ predicted. She might smile at them and was always polite, but most reporters were a pain in her ass. "There's no way to keep this under wraps much longer."

Morgan paused and looked around them. People were in the diner, others were on the streets, everything looked small town normal. "This town is weird."

"The unsubs probably aren't even from here, considering how much other ground we think they've covered," JJ pointed out. She came from a small town herself; she felt like she should defend Beacon Hills, even if it gave her a shiver sometimes too.

"No, I mean, most towns we'd have people reacting to what's going on. No one here seems to even be upset. Everyone is so complacent. It's creepy."

"Let's just be grateful everyone isn't panicking," Hotch said, though even he frowned at Morgan's point.

**~~~November 22, 2012~~~**

 

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

 

**Thanksgiving**

 

 

 

Erica cried and begged and struggled. It was all she could do, tied in ropes that stank of wolfsbane and burned her skin like acid. She couldn't even offer any comfort to Boyd, who yelled and rattled the chains holding him to the electrified gate. Every time the two hunters poked her with the cattle prod, her body thrashed and convulsed, out of her control.

The feeling was horribly familiar, so she took refuge in the way a seizure would leave her detached from her body, her mind floating and far away from the aches and humiliations. They could tie her face down over a table, they could pull her panties down and her skirt up. It was all happening somewhere else, to someone else.

One of them grabbed her hair and pulled her head up. Despite herself, Erica met Boyd's eyes.

Tears dripped down his cheeks.

_I'm sorry_ , she mouthed, _I'm sorry_. She'd been the one who wanted to run. Boyd hadn't wanted to desert Derek, but she'd begged him to come with her. She'd thought they'd be safer together, anywhere but Beacon Hills. She hadn't thought much farther than that, though, and the hunters had shot them down as they were hitchhiking south out of town.

"Fuck," the one with the hard belly exclaimed. He smelled rank. "I'm going to come all over those titties."

This is what she got for abandoning the pack and her alpha. She'd been so stupid. She'd made a spectacle of herself once the Bite took, intent on showing off. She could have kept her head down and simply enjoyed not being sick. She'd made herself a target and then blamed Derek for that, when he'd warned her over and over. She hadn't thought anything through, but the worst thing was dragging Boyd with her.

He didn't deserve this.

Behind her, she heard a zipper come down.

No one deserved this.

She looked at Boyd one more time.

_Don't look._

She closed her eyes, stopped crying, and went away, leaving only an ember of anger burning inside her.

~~~

 

Sheriff Stilinski was hungover again. He hid it well, but Hotch knew the signs. He'd learned them as a boy while the father he'd idolized steadily drank himself into a heavy-handed household tyrant until cancer finally brought him down. He could smell it in Stilinski's sweat.

He didn't know if Stilinski had an alcohol problem. Circumstances were enough to send the steadiest of men to the bottle. A serial killer was on a killing spree in his town and the FBI were looking at his son. Even if Stiles had nothing to do with the killings, something was obviously broken in that household.

They documented the search of Lahey's house on video, since there was no one to accept the search warrant.

The front room was compulsively neat but coated in dust. No one spent any time there. It was a picture framed by the front window, a display meant for the neighbors. The kitchen was more curious. It had been immaculate until recently, but dirty dishes sat in the sink and abandoned on the dining table. Broken pieces of crockery topped the overflowing garbage bin.

The older-style house had bedrooms in the back. The master bedroom was a sty; unwashed sheets, dirty clothes and empty whiskey bottles. A framed photograph hung on the wall, but tilted, the glass over it cracked. The picture showed Lahey, a blond woman and two boys, maybe four years between them.

The closet and dresser only held a man's clothing, the attached master bath the same. They found a loaded .38 revolver in the night stand, along with another whiskey bottle and a porn mag.

"No sign of a wife or girlfriend," Rossi noted.

"Not recently," the deputy with the video camera said, "but he had a wife, I remember the gossip when she took off."

Another decamped wife, like Harris? Interesting. But correlation was not causation.

Rossi looked at the deputy. "Any rumors about why she left?"

The deputy shrugged. "You see this town. It's kind of… dull. People leave for school or jobs or just because they want to be somewhere more alive. You notice how all of us at the department are kind of young?"

Hotch and Rossi exchanged a look. They'd attributed it to Stilinski cleaning house. Rossi was reminded of the arsonist in Royal. A little town with nothing for the teenagers to do. No jobs for young adults either. It could only attract novices or incompetents who had washed up there because there was nowhere lower to fall, like most of the teachers at the high school.

"Yes?"

"A lot of deputies do a couple years here, get the start of a resume, then move on somewhere bigger. If you want to move up, you need a degree, and there's nowhere close enough to commute for school. If we stay, Beacon Hills is a dead end."

"I see," Rossi said.

The deputy glanced toward the doorway, checking for his boss. "Don't get me wrong, the Sheriff is a good guy to work for and he teaches everyone a lot – it's just – it's Beacon Hills. Pretty much everyone wants to get out unless they've just given up."

"Thank you," Hotch said.

The deputy shrugged in embarrassment.

"Did the wife take the children?"

"No," Stilinski said from the doorway. "Isaac is a sophomore. Camden was six years older. He enlisted out of high school. Died in Iraq two years ago." He gestured them to follow him.

The second bedroom was as dusty as the front room, a shrine to Camden Lahey. A color photograph of him in dress uniform, probably blown up and used at his funeral, lay on the bed, along with a folded flag and a few sad medals. Swim team and lacrosse trophies sat on the shelves. Posters on the walls. Pictures of Camden and his high school friends pinned to a corkboard. Sports equipment littered every corner.

The third bedroom was as spartan as Camden's had been crowded. A twin bed made up to military standards, a thin blanket at the foot and one flat pillow. Bare floor, bare walls, no toys, no equipment, no electronics or pictures. A single dresser with a bare minimum of cheap clothes folded inside. White blinds were closed over the single window.

Rossi walked to the window and lifted the blinds with a rattle. "Hotch."

Hotch and Stilinski joined him.

"Nailed shut."

Stilinski looked around the room. "This looks more like a cell than a kid's room."

"What do we know about Victor Lahey?" Hotch asked as they walked out.

"He got fired from running the Phys Ed department at the high school after his wife took off, but he found another job working as the cemetery caretaker and digging graves," Stilinski recited. "Marty down at The Shamrock blacklisted him a while back, but there were no charges filed. Losing Camden must've hit him hard. Folks understood."

"And his other son?"

"Isaac? Quiet kid. On the lacrosse team but not a sports star like Camden."

Rossi paused at a door. "Did anyone look in this closet?"

Stilinski looked to his deputies. They shook their heads. "Best to check it."

Rossi turned the knob and grunted in surprise. "Not a closet."

"Huh," Stilinski said. "Most of the newer houses around here don't have a basement. Must have been built over a previous foundation."

The dark doorway allowed up a cool draft that smelled of earth.

Rossi felt around but couldn't find a light switch.

Stilinski got out a heavy flashlight and switched it on. Hotch and Rossi followed him and the deputy with the camera took up the rear. The beam of light sliced around the basement until Stilinski found a portable work light hung from an overhead beam and plugged it into a wall outlet. He switched it on, illuminating the basement in harsh light.

The typical assortment of seasonal gear, broken things, and odds and ends occupied one end of the room. An old-fashion horizontal freezer sat along the other.

Stilinski aimed the flashlight at the freezer. It had a heavy latch and padlock screwed to it, used often enough that fresh scrapes made it gleam under the light. Stilinski played the light down to the dirty floor. Heavy scuff marks led to the freezer. He followed them back to the stairs and looked at the railing.

The deputy turned the camera on the railing too, its light angled so the gauges there were shadowed.

"Fingernails," Hotch said.

When Stilinski played the flashlight over the wall there were more marks where frantic hands had clutched and dragged. Some were smeared with blood.

Stilinski breathed in hard then walked back to the freezer and plucked the open padlock out of the latch. He paused, fingering a series of holes drilled next to the latch. They didn't line up with any screw holes. He flipped open the lid.

"Son of a bitch."

The inside of the lid was scratched by fingers.

Rossi edged closer and stared inside. It had been washed out recently, but not well, and the plastic interior was permanently stained. Blood persisted like that. One end had scuffs and cracks from kicking feet. The reek of old urine and terror remained.

"Isaac," Stilinski said.

The deputy reeled back from the freezer. Rossi steadied him. He'd seen worse, but he didn't judge the young man for his reaction.

"Isaac," Hotch confirmed.

~~~

 

Emily called Hotch from the hospital morgue. One of the doctor's there had made a preliminary exam, along with the official finding of death, before the body was driven down to Redding and south to Sacramento and the Bureau's labs. It was turning into a daily trip.

"Hey," she said, "It's me. Lahey was torn up and left in a dug out grave. No fire, still in one piece."

"Could it be a copycat?" Hotch asked.

Emily thought about the wounds Lahey had suffered.

"I'm not a pathologist, but I think it was one of our unsubs," she said. They already had two killers and a possibly domestic hate group operating under the radar. Odds were against a third killer.

"Lahey was abusing his son Isaac."

Well, maybe she wouldn't have nightmares about what happened to Lahey after all.

"Is there any chance Isaac could have snapped and tried to make it look like one of the unsubs' kills?" Even if the odds were against a third killer, they had to take that possibility into account. Hotch always covered all the bases.

"Not unless Isaac has the strength of the Hulk and claws of his own," Emily replied. "The Sheriff's department has done a very good job of keeping that aspect of the murders from leaking."

"Isaac Lahey is a sophomore at Beacon Hills High. He's on the lacrosse team with Stiles Stilinski," Hotch reasoned. "From what you found in his room, he's snooped enough to share details."

"Do you want Morgan and me to go to the high school and pick him up?" Emily asked.

"A deputy will meet you there."

"Just to be clear, we're picking up Isaac Lahey, not Stiles."

"Not yet."

"Happy Thanksgiving," Emily said sardonically before ending the call.

~~~

 

Morgan didn't like taking the kid off the lacrosse pitch the way they did. If Isaac Lahey hadn't killed his father, then this was a shitty way to find out, even if his father had been an abusive asshole.

Isaac was slender and tall, but he folded over and looked smaller than he was. Curly hair and heavy-lidded eyes gave him to look of a Caravaggio youth. After some debate, the deputy had agreed they could transport Isaac since they were taking him in for questioning and not arrest yet. Emily rode beside in him the backseat of the SUV.

Morgan checked them both in the rearview mirror. Emily rolled her eyes when she caught him at it. But if Isaac had killed his father, he was strong and unpredictable as a spooked animal. He'd come with them docilely enough, but Morgan had seen quiet-seeming suspects explode more than once.

"Look, kid, we're not out to get you if you're innocent," Morgan said.

Isaac swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing, and nodded submissively. He kept his eyes down.

The kid acted like he didn't expect anything from anyone, but Morgan couldn't stop thinking about the abrupt way Stiles had stepped between the deputy and Isaac at first, and the way the Whittemore kid had raced across the pitch toward them as they led Isaac away from the bench, something animal and intent in his motion. He'd have hated facing up to that sort of focus when he'd been on the football field.

Scott McCall had looked on, a shamefaced smile dying on his lips, as he heard why they were taking Isaac away. He was the only one who had responded to Coach Finstock's hysterical shouts about losing all his players and sacrificing a testicle to win. That man was certifiable, making his players practice even on Thanksgiving.

The three girls on the bleachers had stood and watched too. Kira Yukimura looked worried and confused. Allison Argent clocked them all the way to the SUV, turning and following them at too much a distance to call her on, and only stopping when Lydia Martin caught her wrist in one hand.

Lydia Martin took them in, considered Isaac, then dismissed them. The calculation in her hazel eyes made Morgan wonder if that wasn't what Reid would look like if he had exactly no moral or ethical qualms about using his intelligence against people.

She was the shortest of the three girls, even on ridiculously high heels, but all eyes were drawn inevitably to her and the way her long red hair burned like flames under the winter sun. Strange she'd willingly come back to where she'd been attacked and found a dead body.

Stiles was yelling at McCall as they left, one hand braced against Whittemore's chest. The Yukimura girl scrambled off the bleachers and tried to make peace.

Morgan had felt Martin and Argent's eyes on him all the way to the SUV. He hated this town and this case.

~~~

 

"Sir," Noree Washington said from Noah's open office door. She was their night desk officer, but she'd come in earlier than usual as a favor to their day sergeant so he could have Thanksgiving dinner with his family. "You should hear this."

"What?" His head was still pounding, he needed to call in DCPS for the Lahey boy, because he had no other adult relations, and he'd skipped lunch and been grateful for it after seeing Lahey's body. Stiles still hadn't come home that he knew. He didn't need some new trouble.

No one was asking what he needed, never mind wanted.

"Louis and Diana Reyes are here to fill a missing person report on their daughter Erica. Amarantha Watkins is also here to file one for her grandson Vernon Boyd. Erica and Boyd are both sixteen and classmates of your son at Beacon Hill High," Noree said.

"How long have they been missing?" he asked, feeling sick.

"The Reyes think Erica has been gone two days, but they aren't sure."

"Why not?"

"Diana Reyes works in Redding and commutes and Louis is a nightshift PG&E repairman. Each assumed the other had seen her."

"No call from the truancy officer?"

"The school is used to Erica staying home: she regularly does any time she thinks she may have a seizure. She has severe epilepsy." Noree's lip curled. "It's 'disruptive to fellow students' learning experience' according to the letter the Reyes got after the last time Erica had a seizure in gym class. Mrs. Reyes brought it with her. And there was the time her fellow students videoed her having a seizure and put it on Youtube. They let her stay home when she feels like it."

So not just a missing girl but missing _sick_ girl. Noah squeezed his eyes shut. "You're kidding me." He wasn't sure, but he thought a case of child endangerment could be made if they were leaving her alone when she was having seizures. Though that damn high school didn't sound better or safer.

Noree was still hovering in the doorway, so he knew she wasn't done. "What else?" he asked.

"Erica 's been rebelling, hanging out with 'friends' she never introduced to her parents, had a makeover, even staying out all night. They say she changed all at once last month. They didn't push because she seemed better, even if she was, I quote her father, 'dressing like hooker'. Sheriff, she packed clothes but left her medication."

"Jesus." It sounded like drugs. Beacon Hills had the same drug problems of any other town or city in the US, maybe skewed toward marijuana and meth over opioids but not by much. He worked hard to keep it away from the school. But a girl like Erica Reyes, ostracized and ill, would be easy prey for a dealer. His stomach roiled so he reached for the extra-large bottle of extra strength Tums® he kept in the top drawer of his desk. At the rate he chewed them up, his bones should be unbreakable.

"And the other kid?"

"Vernon Boyd III works after school at the ice rink. He didn't show up for work. His grandmother found out today when she called there looking for him. His parents couldn't be bothered to miss him," Noree said. "She says his parents are too strung out to notice a nuke going off, never mind their kid going missing, until they didn't get their cut of his paycheck."

"Better and better."

"Boyd – he goes by Boyd to distinguish himself from his father who is also Vernon – is seventeen, gets good grades, and had a good attendance record up to last month," Noree recited. She'd done a lot of ground work before bringing this to him, so Noah could look knowledgeable when he talked to anyone else.

"And the kicker," Noree added, "is that Boyd got a girlfriend. A hot blonde who matches the description of the new and improved Erica Reyes. He's been seen with her and a tall kid with curly blondish hair and all of them have been seen getting in a black Camaro."

"Right," Noah said, "I guess I better talk to the Reyes and Mrs. Watkins." His joints ached in rhythm with his pounding headache and he suppressed a groan as he got up. Runaways weren't uncommon in Beacon Hills and he could wish these two hadn't chosen when he had his hands full with a serial killer and wondering if his own kid was into some Satanic occult bullshit, but he had to show the flag, so to speak.

It wasn't that he didn't worry about these kids. He did. He just worried about other things, like murders, more.

He ignored the voice in the back of his head whispering maybe he wouldn't have a string of murders if he'd done more about the arsons and child abuse and malfeasance at the high school before this.

~~~

 

Stiles snapped his fingers. "Lydia. Lydia! Gimme you phone."

"Why would I do that?" she asked imperiously.

"Because mine's in the locker room and I need to call Derek so he can get Isaac a lawyer. We can't exactly go down to the station and tell the FBI Isaac's innocent because he was hiding out in an abandoned train depot with the other person of interest in all the murders."

"Why don't you alibi him then?" Jackson demanded, but he didn't grab or push Stiles the way he would have only weeks ago. He could smell the alpha all over Stiles and had all day. It was stronger on him than Isaac even. Jackson's instincts were telling him to stand with Stiles, the way they'd made him nearly interfere with the cops taking his packmate away.

"Yeah, probably not going to fly. My dad threw me out. If I say I was with Isaac they're probably going to take me in for questioning too."

Jackson took off his helmet and threw it at the bench.

Scott joined them, smiling at Kira while trying to not look too obviously at Allison. Stiles thought he would throw up a little.

"Dude, your dad threw you out? Why didn't you say something?"

Stiles stepped away from him while glaring. "Maybe because I called you and all I got was declines and voicemail and you weren't home. Derek doesn't even have a place, but he still took care of me. The guy I helped get arrested gave more of damn than my so-called best friend."

"I was watching Allison's place, in case that lizard thing goes after her the way the alpha did."

"You're creeping into Stalkerville, Scott." Not to mention Allison and her father were living out of the hotel after her mom's death. How could Scott not get it?

Allison tapped Scott on the arm, glaring. He smiled at her. Beside her, Lydia scowled. "I know you told me you didn't want to see me, but you didn't, and I've been making sure you're safe," he told her.

"Have you heard of restraining orders?" Lydia asked.

"Stop following me around and acting like if you just suck up to my family or me enough, I'll have to take you back," Allison told him angrily.

"But I love you," Scott protested.

"That doesn't mean she has to love you," Lydia snapped. "Your emotions don't give you a right to dictate Allison's feelings, they don't obligate her to reciprocate." She glanced over at Kira, watching them all curiously. "Why have you been flirting with Kira if you're 'in love' with Allison?"

Scott mumbled, "I kinda thought if she saw me with someone else, she'd feel, you know, jealous."

Kira's expression crumpled and she stepped away from Scott.

Lydia let out a wordless little scream of fury.

"That's too shitty even for me, McAsshole," Jackson told him. "You're using Kira and trying to manipulate Allison."

"I didn't mean it like that," Scott said.

"Still a total dick move."

"Lydia," Stiles said. He held out his hand. "Phone."

"You should stay away from Derek," Scott ordered.

"You should fuck off," Jackson said and shoved Scott.

"Leave, Scott," Allison told him.

Scott glared at the rest of them, gave Allison one last pleading look, the stomped off to the locker rooms.

"Loser," Jackson said.

Allison pressed her fingers over her eyes.

"Don't cry," Lydia told her fiercely. "Don't cry over him."

Allison sniffed and nodded, blinking away the wetness at her eyes. "No, it's my mom. He doesn't care."

Stiles privately thought that might be because her mother had tried to kill Scott, but wisely stayed quiet for once. Bashing Victoria wouldn't help Allison.

Lydia brushed her fingers over Allison's cheeks. "Also, tell me what kind of mascara that is."

Startled, Allison laughed. Lydia looked satisfied. Good. No crying girls. He still needed to talk to Derek. Isaac had already told them about Erica and Boyd defecting, so it wasn't like the guy had anything else pressing taking up his time.

"Lydia, phone!" Stiles demanded.

Lydia handed Stiles her gold-toned iPhone.

"Wow, gold, pretentious much?" he said. He input Derek's number. "Hope he answers even if he doesn't recognize the number."

~~~

 

The buzz in his jacket startled Derek. He lifted his head and looked across the subway car to where he'd tossed it. No one called him in Beacon Hills. He'd turned off the phone he used in New York and picked up a burner when he hired the Dellalunas.

He'd even followed Sheriff Stilinski's advice and arranged for PO box – in Redding, where he could lose himself in enough people going in and out to stymie surveillance. He used little known logging and fire roads to work his way around to Hill Valley and back down through the mountains to Mt. Shasta to avoid being picked up taking the highway south from Beacon Hills.

Only a handful of people had the burner's number.

He got up reluctantly and retrieved the phone. He didn't recognize the caller but decided to accept the call anyway. Odds were it was a wrong number.

"Yeah," he said in a neutral tone, unwilling to identify himself on principle.

"It's Stiles, look, I'm borrowing Lydia's phone and her minutes, so just listen." In the background he heard a female voice say she had an unlimited plan.

"What is it?" he asked, because even Stiles wouldn't randomly call him from someone else's phone without a reason.

"Isaac's dad's dead and they've taken him to the police station for questioning," Stiles answered succinctly, proving that he could cut the babble when necessary.

"Fuck." Derek's mind raced. How did this fit – ?

"Look, we both know Isaac didn't do it, but I can't exactly waltz into the police station and say I'm alibi-ing him because we were both having a sleepover at the local alpha werewolf's squat that night. Same for Erica or Boyd – "

"They're gone anyway," Derek said without thinking about. It didn't matter anyway, Stiles would be bound to notice the two betas were missing from school soon enough.

"They really left?"

"They didn't think it would be like this."

"And you just let them go?" Stiles whispered.

"I don't own them, Stiles."

"Yeah, I know, I just didn't know if the alpha thing meant – because Peter, uh, but he was crazy bad, sorry, so I'll – I'll just shut up now."

On the phone, safe from seeing or smelling any reactions, it was easier to say. "I shouldn't have bit them. I thought it would help them, I told them the dangers, but I didn't know Gerard would show up with more hunters or the kanima. It wasn't what they thought they were agreeing to. Isaac either." He closed his eyes and just breathed. "I didn't try to stop them."

Maybe they would get lucky. If they managed to get out of Beacon Hills, they'd already be lucky.

He could hear Stiles breathing.

"I don't know whether to be jealous they’re getting away or mad," Stiles said finally. "Those bitches."

"Thanks for calling me, Stiles," Derek said in a stilted voice. "I'll get Isaac out."

"Wait – wait! Listen, you know this is the hunters, because I know it."

Derek knew it too, but he couldn't leave a new bitten wolf in a human jail, even if there weren't hunters circling. He pressed between his brows, trying to release the tension headache forming there.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. He couldn't give up, not with Isaac, and to some extent Jackson and Scott, relying on him, but he didn't know what to do. Find the kanima and kill it, but he'd made no progress there. He didn't even know if it was possible. His mother had tried to give them all a 'normal' upbringing and happy childhoods, but right now he wanted to curse her for not teaching them more, sooner.

He'd rather have had nightmares about what might happen than the ones he had now of what did.

"Look, they set Isaac up because they know you'll show to get him out and give them a chance to cut you down," Stiles blurted. "You break Isaac out and it's their excuse. Or you get arrested too and they send in another guy like Tyhurst. You've got to have a plan."

"I know."

"Okay, but, wait, Jackson says hire his dad to represent Isaac. He's a minor, they shouldn't be questioning him without a parent or representation, that's fucked up. If you show up, show up with a lawyer. And there's the media. Like everything's been kept really quiet, and I hate the idea that it would make my dad look bad, but you could make a scandal of it, a spree killer, the last of your family murdered and the cops and the FBI tried to pin it on you and now some poor orphan kid. It could be a bigger story than Zodiac or the Mansons."

"Drawing more attention is a bad idea."

"But mentioning it might not be. Just go hire Jackson's dad; he says his dad will do it, he's been pissed with the department since he complained out Isaac's dad hitting his wife. Huh, that's why she left, I guess."

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't like it, but Stiles made good points.

"Hey, Derek," Stiles said very quietly.

"Yes?"

"How'd they know Isaac was your beta?"

Scott. Derek didn't say it, but he knew. Isaac had found his control fast; he hadn't showed off the way Scott had and given himself away. He hadn't even confronted his father, instead he'd just taken to staying with Derek. Derek had been careful to not be seen with his betas in public and would have even if he hadn't been evading the police. But Scott knew, even if Stiles hadn't told him, because he could smell the wolves. Jackson would know too, but Jackson was sensible enough to understand keeping their secret protected his.

Scott didn't consider the long-term. He hated Derek and was resentful of the betas for choosing what had been forced on him.

Derek wasn't denying Scott had suffered. No one should be forced into something they didn't want. A werewolf's life was hard even under the best circumstances, filled with lies and fear, always separate from everyone who didn't know. Derek had had everything and everyone he cared for wrested from him because he was a werewolf. But hating it was as useful as hating the sun rising.

"Der – " Stiles' voice broke. He was a smart kid. Derek didn’t have to explain it; he’d figured out Scott was the only one who could have betrayed them. "Derek?"

"Does it matter?" Derek muttered. "Tell Jackson I'll go to his father. He should stay away from the station. Lydia too, the hunters know she was attacked, so she could be a target. Gerard's hunters don't worry about making mistakes."

A sharp female voice said, "I had already taken that into account, but the sentiment is appreciated." Lydia. "Stiles will be providing me with everything he knows, but if I have more questions, I will call this number and expect you to answer."

"Why?"

"Because I am sick of being collateral damage in a supernatural family feud," she snapped. "Also, I am the smartest person in this town, except possibly that cute FBI agent, and it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who the kanima is once I figure out what links its victims, and that will tell us who the master is. Take the master out and the kanima is no longer a problem, obviously."

"You should stay out of – "

The wail was louder than the cheap phone's speaker could handle but Derek jerked it away from his ear in pain anyway. He could hear it through the phone, but he could feel it too, high and horrible, the way he felt the moon rise. Lydia. It was the siren alarm of something otherworldly, something if not kin to a wolf, then certainly not human. The banshee's wail rose and fell nine times.

The call went dead.

The scream had no doubt broken glass and destroyed any electronics too near it.

He stared at the burner in his hand and denied himself the impulse to crush or hurl it at a wall.

~~~

 

The phone hit the ground as Lydia's eyes rolled back in her head. Stiles and Allison leaped toward her, but she didn't fall. She opened her mouth and screamed over and over. Jackson hit his knees while clutching at his ears. Stiles and Allison stumbled back from Lydia. The air in front of Lydia's mouth visibly rippled with the force of the sound.

Kira, up on the bleachers, doubled over, and her books and purse spilling down.

No one else was left on the pitch at least, even Danny had given up on getting anything more done in the wake of Isaac being taken away. Finstock had trailed after the team toward the locker rooms, ranting to himself about conspiracies and needing a vacation.

When Lydia finished, she stood, blank-faced and trembling.

_What the fuck was that?_ Stiles said, or thought he said, but he couldn't hear himself through buzzing cotton in his ears. Deaf. Shit, he didn't heal like a werewolf.

Jackson was already on his feet again.

A tickle in his ear turned into the feel of warmth trickling out of it. Stiles lifted his hand to his ear. It came away bloody.

Allison was staring at him wide-eyed. Blood ran from her nose. Stiles pointed to her then touched his upper lip. She wiped at her lip and looked at the blood fearfully.

The buzzing in his ears shifted to a high, thin ringing. Tinnitus. His dad always made him wear ear plugs and protectors when they went to the gun range together to protect against that. He knew some people still experienced it even if they were deafened, but the change made him hopeful.

Jackson had his hands resting on Lydia's shoulders. Of course, he was already recovered. He looked just as scared and freaked out as the rest of them, though. Lydia still looked out of it.

Kira staggered down off the bleachers. Her eyes were huge, but she looked in better shape than Stiles or Allison. Maybe because she'd been a little farther away. She was talking, but Stiles still wasn't getting anything.

He pointed to his ears and shook his head, which stopped her. Her mouth opened in a big, _Oh_ , before she slapped her hand over it. She scrambled for her bag, pulled out a notebook and pencil and wrote, _Hospital?_

A warm feeling of fondness toward her filled Stiles. He didn't know her that well, but she was truly nice. Klutzy, like him, but he honestly didn't get why she thought Scott was all that. First Allison and now Kira, except Scott didn't really care about Kira at all, and Stiles wished he could punch him for that. Being a werewolf was no excuse for being a shit.

He looked at Allison, but she shrugged.

He was hearing noise now, though he couldn't make out words. He swung back to look at Jackson and Lydia.

Lydia gestured imperiously to Kira, who handed over the notebook and pencil. She wrote quickly and held it up for them all to read.

Police Station. People will die.

_"Who!?"_ Stiles yelled and he could sort of hear himself. _"Who is going to die?"_ His dad would be there, Isaac was there, deputies he knew, the FBI profilers, shit, Derek was probably on his way and Jackson's dad… _"Is it hunters!?"_

He read her lips with a little guessing. "I don't know."

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. It didn't matter what his dad thought of him or if he was thrown out, he had to take care of him. That's what Stiles did – he made sure his dad didn't spiral out of control or have a heart attack or forget his vest at home. His dad stayed alive and Stiles wasn't alone. That was the deal with the universe.

"We have to go to the station," he said. "I have to get there and make sure my dad is okay." He dodged around Kira, who still seemed bewildered, and headed for the parking lot.

He noticed the glass on the ground under all the windows and breathed a sigh of relief when the windshield on the Jeep was intact. Everything on the old Jeep was so loose it probably had room to shake without breaking. It started with a coughing rattle, just like always, and Stiles patted the steering wheel.

Allison yelled, “We’re coming with you!” as she and Kira jumped in the Jeep. Stiles put it in gear. Kira squeezed his shoulder.

He smoked the tires heading onto the street and glimpsed Jackson and Lydia in the Porsche behind him.

~~~

 

Isaac wrapped his arms around himself and rocked in his chair. His dad. His _dad._ His dad was dead. He squeezed his eyes shut and curled his hands tight and concentrated on not shifting. Calm. Calm. One, two, three. Three, two, one. The smell of fresh cut green grass. A grass stain on his pants from the field. He focused on the smell. Just the smell of grass. It had no bad connotations. Grass was good. Better than panicking or attacking someone the way his shocky body wanted.

He was locked in a room, a small room with no windows and flickering light, just like the basement. He couldn't be in the basement again. Not again. He took the Bite so he would never be trapped in that freezer again, but he was trapped now, because he couldn't _use_ his strength.

"Isaac," the pretty blond agent said. She had kind eyes. He couldn't remember what she'd said her name was or the deputy that was standing by the door. He wanted to help her, but he knew he shouldn't say anything. "We found the basement and the freezer."

He shook his head.

"We know what your dad was doing to you."

Isaac kept shaking his head.

"If you – "

"Come on, agent, we all know he snapped, cut up daddy dearest, and dumped him at the cemetery," the deputy said. "He thought he finally had his chance and we'd just blame the murder on whoever's been killing people. Hell, maybe he's the one. That's what killers do, right? Cover up their real victim by taking out a bunch of other people. You're going to go away forever, kid, because that's premeditated."

"I don't believe that, Isaac," the agent said kindly. "I think despite everything, you loved your dad, or you would have said something to someone. He was all you had left after your brother died. You didn't kill your father."

He could hear her heartbeat, smell her sweat, laundry soap, shower gel, the coffee she'd drunk and the sugar that spilled on her collar from a donut. A gold chain, thin and delicate, hung from her neck, the pendant hidden beneath the neck line of her simple blue shirt. She had plain gold studs in her ears.

She wasn't lying.

He still shouldn't talk to her. It wasn't just her; it was all the cops. The deputy was a jerk who smelled like too much Old Spice and kept tapping his fingers on the butt of his gun.

"When was the last time you saw you father?"

Isaac rolled one shoulder. He wasn't positive. His dad might have been in the house the last time Isaac slipped inside to get some clean clothes. He'd gone out the bathroom window with his duffel bag and not looked back.

His stomach gurgled, reminding him that lunch was a long time ago and he needed a lot more food than he did before the Bite.

"Okay." She sat back a little. The interrogation room had a window that let people in the next room look inside. It was behind her. He heard them breathing and moving on the other side. "Would you like something to drink or eat? Water or a soda? A sandwich?"

Isaac eyed her warily.

She held up her hands. "We'll take a break and I'll bring you back dinner and some water."

~~~

 

"I will eat my tie if that kid had anything to do with offing his father," Rossi declared after JJ and the deputy left Isaac Lahey in the interrogation room.

"He's scared, he's been abused, and, honestly, I felt bad just trying to question him," JJ concurred.

"You don't think refusing to answer your questions is a little squirrelly?" Morgan demanded. Morgan hid it but he was usually the one who had the most sympathy for the molested or abused. He had an eye for survivors. JJ didn't let herself tug on that thread no matter how many times she noticed it. They were all broken in their own ways and she'd never decided if that was what made them good at their job or just made it hurt them more.

She shook her head at Morgan.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Morgan, every kid over five has seen enough TV to know about the right to remain silent, along with basic forensic counter-measures, unfortunately." She jerked her head toward the interrogation room. "That kid? Silence is probably his only defense. Abusers turn anything their victims say into an excuse to make it their that fault they're getting the shit beat out of them."

"Fine, feed him," Morgan exclaimed.

"We may as well phone in a big order for everyone and get it delivered," Emily said.

JJ checked her watch. It was three hours later on the East Coast. "Could you handle it?" she asked. "I want to call Will and Henry."

Emily smiled sweetly at her. "Sure."

She resisted the urge to hug her. She'd liked Elle, they'd been good colleagues, but she'd never felt as close to Elle as she was with Emily. Emily was someone who would always be on JJ's side, who understood being a woman in a traditionally male field, and who respected JJ's areas of expertise. Elle had worked so hard to be one of the boys, JJ always felt a little looked down on for not eschewing femininity, for not being the tough as nails bad ass.

She'd never have asked Elle to do something that wasn't about a case. Emily or Garcia, JJ could trust not just on the job but in the little things like freeing up time for her to maintain her relationship.

"Thanks," JJ told her warmly.

She ducked into the break room and got out her phone. Will picked up on the second ring and JJ smiled at his slow, sweet drawl and the way just talking with him felt like she was being hugged.

"Tell me about your day first," she said and listened, commenting here and there.

_"Henry misses you. So do I."_

A fuss out in the bullpen drew her attention. Hotch and Sheriff Stilinski were out there, along with a several tense deputies and two men. JJ blinked as she realized one of them was the elusive Derek Hale.

_"I get the feeling I just lost your attention,"_ Will murmured in her ear.

JJ laughed. "Sorry, babe. The guy we think the unsubs are targeting just walked into the station. I think he hurt the deputies' pride, since there was an APB out on him at one point and they couldn't find him."

Will chuckled. _"That does sting."_

She loved that he was a cop and understood. "Hotch is handling it. Tell me you used the vegetables in the fridge." Will's hesitation made her laugh. "Okay, throw them out before they turn into slime and, at least, tell me you're eating something better than Hungry Man dinners."

_"I can do that,"_ he promised. _"Though I do like the turkey dinner one."_

~~~

 

Allison answered her phone on automatic. It was her father. He'd want to know where she was. It was Thanksgiving after all and even grieving, he'd expect her to be with him. But she had been unable to stay in the hotel and agreed to meet Lydia at the lacrosse pitch. She'd hoped someone would know more than her father had told her.

"Hi, dad. I'll be back so – "

_"Allison, thank God. Where are you?"_ Her father sounded afraid rather than angry. Allison swallowed hard.

"With Stiles – "

_"No, no!"_ he shouted. _"Stay away from him, stay away from the police station! Get back here, it's not safe."_

"What's he talking about?" Stiles demanded. He'd been driving on the edge of too fast, now he pushed the Jeep faster, slinging them in the seats as he took a corner recklessly.

"What's going on?" Allison asked. "Isaac Lahey was arrested – "

_"I know! It's a set-up! Gerard's sending all his men in to kill the boy and Hale! Anyone in the way is going to die!"_

Allison could see the bulk of the police station ahead. Stiles turned the Jeep into and alley. Behind them, Jackson's Porsche made the same turn with a screech from its abused tires.

"Back way in," Stiles gritted out.

"Stiles, did you hear – "

"I heard. Fuck your grandfather. And fuck you dad for not warning anyone," he snarled at her, teeth bared like he was a werewolf.

_"Allison!"_ her father yelled from the phone.

She ended the call.

~~~

 

Derek Morgan's first sight of Derek Hale told him so much more than the man likely wanted. Hale was younger than him, ripped, and handsome enough to give Morgan competition. Hale carried himself straight, balanced, and braced for a blow. He watched the world with the eyes of a survivor who knew he could trust no one. He held himself like some who had forgotten what it was like to not hurt.

Hale didn't want to be in the police station. It was clear in the way his eyes clocked all the exits and everyone in it like a threat. But he'd come of his free will.

The Sheriff had shot out of his office when Officer Washington came back with the news that Hale was in the front lobby with a lawyer. Not for himself, but for Isaac Lahey.

And that told Morgan a hell of lot about the man too. Despite whatever he'd endured, he could still care about someone else. He didn't want to like Hale, but he thought he might have to respect him.

"How are you connected to Isaac?" the Sheriff asked.

Hale gave him a flat look. "Remember what happened here last time you brought me in?"

"Nothing's going to happen to Isaac."

"No, because Judge Cummings has appointed me to represent Isaac Lahey since he's a minor," the lawyer, Jackson Whittemore's father, interrupted. "If you've interrogated him without counsel present, I will see every word and frame recorded thrown out."

"You're not with the Public Defender's Office, David," the Sheriff observed.

"Mr. Hale offered to cover my fees, but I'm going to take this case pro bono," Whittemore snapped. "Someone should have done something about Victor Lahey a long time ago. That includes me."

"All right, no argument there."

Morgan had gone down into the Lahey basement during the second search. He'd seen the freezer, with its padlock, three pitiful air holes, and the interior where Isaac had been locked in.

"Noree'll take you back to the interview room. We haven't put him in a cell." No one had had the will to lock Isaac up in a small cell after what they'd seen in his house.

Whittemore followed Officer Washington away.

The Sheriff switched his attention to Hale, who had stood silently while he dealt with Whittemore.

Hotch and Rossi joined them.

"These folks are with the FBI."

Hale's gaze acknowledged them, but he didn't speak.

"I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner, this is SSA David Rossi and SA Derek Morgan," Hotch introduced them. "We're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We'd like to talk to you."

Hale said nothing. His nostrils flared, like a wild animal testing the wind. The ink-black of his lashes and hair made him look even paler than he was. He pressed his lips together before he nodded. They were dry and a little chapped.

"We're also very sorry for the death of your sister and your uncle," Rossi said smoothly. "You could help us catch who killed them."

"Sure." Hale remained expressionless, but the disbelief in his tone was scalding.

Hotch nodded toward the conference room where they were set up. The Beacon County Sheriff's Department building only had one interview room. Isaac Lahey was already in it. Allowing Hale to see the information on the case scattered around the room wasn't protocol, but they knew he wasn't one of their unsubs. Seeing the effort going into the investigation might dispose him to cooperate.

Reid was staring at the white board where he had a detailed map of the county taped up, the crime scenes and dump sites all high-lighted. The geographic profile hadn't come together to his satisfaction. He kept working on it.

JJ was on the phone, talking in a quiet murmur that made Morgan suspect Will was at the other end of the call.

Emily was at the table, frowning over the pictures from the Lahey scene. She looked up as Hale came into the room with them and her eyes widened.

Penelope spun her computer chair around and squeaked, "Oh my God, you're really even more beautiful than the pictures!" before she slapped her hands over her mouth, nearly putting out an eye with the sparkly feather decorated pen she had in one.

Hale froze, so tense Morgan thought he'd twang.

Penelope started babbling. "That was so inappropriate. I'm am so sorry. I've been looking at pictures of you for days and there must be something magic about naming someone Derek, because you and my Derek are both so gorgeous – and I'm not helping, am I? Can I say that after everything that happened in this town, I am really so happy to see you're okay? Is that okay?"

Hale moved on into the room. The impassive mask broke for an instant and he let out a short chuff of amusement. "Thank you. I think. Who are you?"

"Oh, oh! Penelope Garcia, Goddess of All Information. Please don't complain about me to HR. I really don't want to go to the proper work place behavior seminar for a third time this year."

"Penelope is our Computer Information Analyst," Hotch said.

"I usually stay in Quantico," Penelope admitted in a small voice.

"No HR," Hale told Penelope in a rusty voice. He sounded naturally quiet-spoken as well as taciturn. He'd relaxed a fraction and cocked his head to the side. He didn't smile, but the change of angle lit the pale, startling green of his eyes, showing the amber around his pupils. "Nice flower."

Penelope touched the silk blossom pinned to her headband and smiled blindingly at Hale. "That's how you treat a lady," she teased Morgan.

"I'll remember next time I meet one," Morgan joked back.

Emily punched him passing. "Jerk. JJ and I will remember that too." She'd shuffled the photos into a file and set them aside. "Emily Prentiss," she introduced herself and offered her hand to Hale.

Hale hesitated then took Emily's hand. He kept a space between himself and everyone, more than the average person did. He didn't like to be touched. He deliberately took a seat that let him face the door.

There were too many of them in the room for Hale to relax. Hotch looked at Emily and Morgan. JJ, still on the phone, gave Hale a nod and headed into the break room. Morgan followed reluctantly along with Emily, who made a straight line to the coffeemaker. She sniffed the sludge at the bottom of the carafe and wrinkled her nose. "Why are men incapable of cleaning the pot and starting a new one?"

"Because you do it so much better."

Emily glared but set to making a new pot. "You don't get any."

"I miss you too," JJ murmured, confirming Morgan's guess. Will. Missing Thanksgiving with their son had to be hard. He thought he might have to leave the BAU is he ever had kids. "Soon. We just need a break on this case. I know." She curled up on the broken-down couch shoved in the room's corner and was ignoring them. "Hey, Henry. What have you been doing while Mommy's away?"

The door into the conference room hung open. If Morgan stood close and listened, he could make out Hotch talking. Hale's voice was too soft to make out, but his answers were short. Morgan closed his eyes, letting the murmur of voices and the sounds of the police station blur together. Maybe Hale could give them the answers they needed to close this case, because every profile they'd formulated so far had fallen completely apart.

The breakroom smelled of cleaners mostly, with the scent of brewing coffee slowly overwhelming them as he stood there, letting the tight muscles in his back and shoulders untie.

When he opened his eyes, Emily had a mug of hot coffee. "Where's mine?"

She blinked at him innocently, cradling her mug in both hands and inhaling the scent.

"Mean woman," Morgan told her and headed for the fresh pot.

~~~

 

Gerard stoked his hand over his pet's head. She was so useful like this. So obedient. He regretted he would have to be rid of her eventually, but Kate had screwed up too many times. She'd drawn law enforcement attention not just to her but to all their activities. Eventually, she'd realize what she'd become; he couldn't predict what she'd do then.

Something bloody.

He ignored the tremor in his hand and the mottling that had grown darker every day.

The phone sitting on the dashboard of his car trilled. Gerard took the call. "Go ahead."

"Hale just went inside."

He smiled. "Excellent." He could see the rear loading door to the station from where he'd parked. His pet was low in the passenger seat, out of sight of anyone passing by. Slitted yellow eyes looked up at him. "Have Smith open the back."

Smith was dressed in a Sheriff's department uniform. It let him operate right out in the open with a gun at his hip. His pictures were out there from CCTV inside the station, though. They wouldn't be able to use him again, which made him a liability. They'd need to remove the girlfriend who worked at CBI and falsified the Tyhurst ID as well. Such loose ends were where Kate always failed. She hated clean up. It bored her.

Smith used the code he'd obtained while faking being Tyhurst to enter the secured section of the police station. His knowledge of law enforcement protocol would be a great loss to the hunter community.

"Everyone should withdraw to their observation stations," Gerard ordered. "I'll let you know when to move."

"Ready, sir."

Smith walked away. Gerard smiled down at his pet. He climbed out of his car and she followed him out and to the now open door. "Go and bring me Derek Hale alive," Gerard commanded. "Kill the other wolf."

Kate slithered inside. She would wreak havoc with her venom and claws and when she had finished, he would send in his men to finish the job. As the door fell shut, he said into his phone, "Jam everything and cut the power."

~~~

 

"Damn it," JJ mumbled. "My call just dropped and now I've got no bars."

Morgan offered his phone. "Try mine." Will knew the number. He'd answer.

Maybe he heard the change in the background first because he'd just been listening to the regular, comforting buzz. The shout and scream burst against Morgan's eardrums along with the first battering rush of automatic fire.

"In the back – !" Someone yelled and a series of single shots started but were overwhelmed. Deputies firing back. The attackers had automatics. Gunshots were always loud and worse in confined spaces. Without protection, his ears were already ringing.

Morgan drew his own weapon. Emily sidled up beside him and JJ just behind with her weapon drawn too, phone abandoned. JJ might look like a fragile blonde girly girl, but they knew from harsh experience that she was a deadly shot and someone you wanted covering your back.

"Hotch," Morgan said in a low voice.

"Here," Hotch answered. Morgan ducked his head through the doorway. Rossi and Hotch were covering the conference room's door into the corridor the led to the bullpen. Reid had his revolver in his hand. Hale had been moved back from the doorways, next to Penelope.

Terror made Penelope's voice quiver. "Guys, the internet connection is down. I tried my cell and Reid's and I think they're being jammed."

Shit god damn it, Morgan thought to himself. This was premeditated. Christ. Hale had been right. The last time he'd been in the station the fake CBI agent tried to kill him. It looked like an even more blatant attempt was being made this time.

Hotch must have figured the same thing. "Reid, I want you and JJ covering Mr. Hale and Garcia. Get in the break room. Get behind as much cover as you can. Lock and block the damn doors."

Reid wanted to protest. Morgan could see it. Instead, he ushered Penelope past Morgan and Emily and inside. Hale was looking toward the bullpen too, listening, tensed and ready to move. Penelope tottered and Morgan swore at those damn platforms she insisted on wearing, but Hale took hold of her elbow, steadying her.

The gunfire, automatic and single shot, started again. The overhead lights flickered and went dark. Dim and not very adequate emergency lights came on in response to the darkness, tinting everything in shadow and red. The electricity had been cut.

"Stay here," Morgan ordered Hale.

"What about Isaac?" Hale demanded.

"Do you think he's a target?" Emily whispered.

Hale looked conflicted, like he didn't want to admit Isaac had any connection to this but was too concerned to hold it back any longer. "Yes," he hissed. "They killed his father to get him in here. They gambled I'd come here for him. They'll kill him too."

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. _They._ There _was_ more than one unsub, and given this coordinated attack, probably more than two. The killing pair were part of something more insidious that was bursting open like an abscess under the pressure of their actions and the investigation.

"Morgan, Emily," Hotch whisper ordered. "Get the Lahey boy and his lawyer."

Someone screamed in the front of the station, high and horrified.

"Come on," Emily urged him.

Morgan followed her into the corridor. They headed for the interview room, passing the closed doors to several offices, the entrance to the locker room and showers, records, and the restrooms. The interview room was opposite the rest rooms. Beyond it, the holding cells were blocked off. He checked every door as he passed, but they were locked.

The shooting in the front of the station had become sporadic, a shot and then a fusillade from the attackers. It made Morgan's heart speed up. Bad shit was happening out there; he wanted to be providing back up, but this was important too.

Emily nodded to Morgan and he put his hand on the knob of interview room door. It turned and started to open, but stopped, blocked by something. Morgan pushed, feeling the fleshy give of whatever was against the door, before it slid under the steady pressure.

Emily went in weapon first, arms straight, fiercely intent as Morgan put his shoulder to the door to open it enough to get inside.

The hot smell of fresh blood filled his lungs, thick enough it seemed to coat his tongue.

The single emergency light barely illuminated the spartan room. The chairs were tumbled into one corner. Morgan counted three bodies down.

Isaac Lahey sprawled limp over the room's small table. Blood splatted off the table's edge. David Whittemore lay crumpled in a corner. Officer Washington had fallen the floor, face up, eyes unblinking. Her legs had been blocking the door. Morgan stepped over her and checked the other corners.

"Clear," Emily whispered.

"Clear," Morgan muttered, but the hairs at the nape of his neck and on his forearms were standing up, instinct screaming that the threat was still present.

Emily knelt by Washington and set two fingers under her jaw to check for a pulse. "She's alive."

Morgan didn't want to see what had been done to Isaac, not when the blood was still fresh. He skirted the table, so he could reach Whittemore and check him.

"I can't find a wound," Emily said, puzzled.

Whittemore was breathing. His eyes were open, his face tipped toward the ceiling. He was blinking rapidly, rasping breaths audible from his open mouth. He seemed conscious but unable to move.

The table behind Morgan creaked and he spun, aiming his weapon toward the threat. Isaac's back bowed, and he heaved himself up from the table, his hands slipping in his own blood. Emily stared from where she still knelt, her dark eyes huge in shock.

Whittemore gurgled louder. Morgan looked back. Drool ran from the man's mouth as he tried to speak, as though he'd been paralyzed from a stroke. Morgan was torn between going to Isaac and making out what Whittemore was trying to say.

"Uuuhhhh," Whittemore groaned then pressed his lips together in a soundless pop.

The shadows flickered.

What?

"Up," Isaac and threw himself off the table.

Morgan snapped his eyes up to the ceiling as something moved above him. Sharp claws ripped through his arm and he lost his weapon as he was knocked to his knees.

Emily got off two shots as Morgan struggled to get to his feet, but a cold numbness filled him from the outside in, until he couldn't feel or move, and darkness swallowed him whole.

~~~

 

"Who do I call?" she asked.

"911," Stiles ordered. "Tell the dispatcher you were in the school parking lot, getting something from your car, and overheard someone you didn't recognize talking about an attack on the police station. You were afraid to look and see who it was and waited until they drove away to call. It's a shit story, but no one can prove it isn't the truth. Keep it general – "

"Stiles, they'll want to know what the threat was!"

"I don't know!" he yelled. "Say the guy said they were going to shoot up the police station to show everyone the greater glory of Scientology. Who cares!?"

"Okay, okay," she said. "Why Scientology?" Allison swiped on her phone and posed her finger over the keypad.

"You don't know, you didn't hear the rest of what he was saying."

She tapped in 911 and put the phone to her ear. It made its dialing sound effect and then dropped. She jerked the phone away and stared at it. She had plenty of bars. She redialed. Nothing.

"Stiles," she said, "there's no answer from 911."

"What, no, that's impossible."

Allison turned around in her seat. "Kira, have you got a phone?"

"You guys want me to call a fake warning into 911?" Kira asked, looking shocked and freaked out.

"Never mind," Stiles said, "We're almost there. Kira, you need to go someplace and call your mom or dad or a taxi. Okay?"

"I don't get what's going on," she said in a small voice.

"And you're so much safer and happier if it stays that way," Allison told her gently. "Trust me."

"But Scott knows, doesn't he?" Kira asked.

"Yes, he knows, okay, but you're really better off not getting involved, I swear," Stiles said. He screeched the Jeep to a stop in the middle of the alley behind the police station. "Oh, shit." Lydia and Jackson in the Porsche braked to a stop behind them.

Allison turned around in her seat again to see what Stiles saw. She shuddered as she recognized her grandfather standing next to his car. He was watching the back entrance to the station. The parking lot's lights were spotty, but there was something big on four feet moving from the car toward the doorway. As it passed into a pool of light, Kira squeaked from the backseat, "Oh my God, what is that?"

"Allison," Stiles said in a flat voice, "you have to call Scott. He'll answer you. Get him here, we need all the help we can get."

Allison shook her head and told him, "My phone's not working. I think it's jammed." Cell phone jammers were part of her training now. Hunters used them to keep their targets from calling police or the rest of their packs.

"Okay, then you have to take Kira and get far enough away to call for help."

"Who the hell do I call?"

"Call the Fire Department, they can radio the guys out on patrol. Tell them there's something wrong and 911's down."

"Stiles, what are you going to do?" she asked as he scrambled out of the Jeep. He fished a jar out from under the driver's seat.

He held up the jar. "I'm going to trap that ugly, stupid lizard." He ran back toward the Porsche.

"How?"

"Rowan Ash. I got it off the Internet."

Allison knew her grandfather would hurt Stiles if he caught him interfering with his plans. "Kira," she said, "you have to drive. I need to help Stiles." He hadn't thought this out. He was going to trap the kanima inside, but people would be trapped inside with it.

"What? I don't drive stick!"

"Figure it out," Allison told her and found the jacked-up Taser her dad insisted she carry with her. She had a knife strapped to her arm, but she wasn't ready to use that on her grandfather, not yet. Behind her, Kira ground the Jeep's gears and pulled away.

Stiles headed toward to back door of the station, where he bent over and began shaking a line over powder along the sill.

"No!" her grandfather shouted. Stiles flipped him off.

Her grandfather pulled out a gun. Allison sprinted forward until she had a clear shot and fired the Taser at her grandfather's back. He went down. The gun in his hand fired as he hit the ground. The safety had been off, bullet in the chamber.

The shooting inside began then as if that wild shot had been a starting gun. Stiles spilled black powder from the jar as he began to run alongside the station's wall.

Allison reached her grandfather and jerked the Taser darts out of his back. He was twitching and helpless for the moment. Jackson joined her as she tried to figure out what to do next.

"The gun went over there," he said and pointed to a parked car.

She wanted to call her dad back, but the phones were off. "Leave it. Help me get him in his car. I'm going to take him away. You should wait for Stiles. Kira took the Jeep."

She knelt to take her grandfather's legs. Before she could lift, Jackson had picked him up effortlessly. Allison sucked in a breath, then nodded to herself, because she should have known. Jackson wasn't shifted, but his eyes were shining werewolf gold.

"Peter bit you?" she asked as she got the passenger side door to Gerard's car open. Jackson stuffed him inside carelessly.

"That night," Jackson confirmed. "Got me with his claws."

"Lydia?"

He shook his head. "Ask her."

Allison ducked in and fastened the seatbelt over Gerard's chest.

"Go," Jackson said.

"Tell Stiles I'm sorry." She wasn't sure exactly for what, but she did feel like she was doing something wrong getting Gerard away. What if Stiles' father was dead? Or Isaac? Or Derek? The FBI agents. The other people inside the station? The kanima obviously answered to her grandfather. And she could hear sporadic gunfire even now.

"You kept him from being shot," Jackson said roughly. "Get Grandpa out of here before he wakes up and makes things worse."

Allison scrambled into the driver's seat. Thank God, the keys were in the ignition. She tore out of the lot. She couldn’t bring herself to kill him, no matter how awful he was. She wasn’t ready to commit murder. It would be too much like Kate or Gerard himself. The best she could do was leave him stranded, with no car, no wallet and no phone. Getting his phone and wallet was uncomfortable and frightening; she worried he’d wake up before she got away from him, but he didn’t. She left Gerard in the car, parked on the far side of town, after using her knife to slash the tires, and walked away.

She called her father when she was far enough he wouldn’t see Gerard’s car if he came and got her.

_"Allison, Allison, are you okay?"_ he answered immediately.

"I need a ride."

She absolutely was not okay. She had the worst suspicion Kate had been in the police station.

~~~

 

He heard Gerard's voice outside the walls and knew what was coming as everything electronic in the station shut off. Shouts sounded from the bullpen and front lobby. Bodies dropped quietly as the FBI agents scrambled to understand what was happening.

The scent of reptile confirmed Derek's worst-case scenario. The kanima was under Gerard's control. Most hunters would recoil from even the thought of doing anything other than killing a creature like the kanima. Not Gerard. Gerard didn't care about the Code or collateral human casualties any more than Kate ever had. The men he'd gathered and brought to Beacon Hills were more of the same, thrill-killers who had found a minority that didn't dare even let the authorities know they existed.

And Gerard wanted him alive. Because Derek was the alpha, otherwise he could have taken any of the betas. He could have lured Scott with just the hint of seeing Allison…

Stiles had been right. This was a trap set for Derek with Isaac as the bait. He heard the thumps and cries as the kanima progressed through the station before it found his beta.

He twitched as he felt a rowan ash circle close around the police station.

The ash trapped him and Isaac, but it would stop the kanima taking Derek anywhere if it managed to reach him.

The gunfire startled him until he realized Gerard couldn't afford for survivors to describe the kanima. These were rogue hunters, led by a murderer of humans, and they'd be hunted down by their own if the story spread.

He'd half meant to break Isaac out and run with him until the rowan ash closed them in.

He let the FBI agents push him back into the break room with their computer analyst and used the sofa, table and refrigerator to make a barricade to protect her. "Stay down, don't look," he told her as two more agents fell to the kanima's venom. The older one emptied a clip into it and was swatted into a wall for his efforts.

A roll of his shoulders loosened them as he pushed the shift to the fore, claws and fangs dropping, his body swelling into alpha form, the blacked-out station painted in red.

The kanima came through into the room clinging to the ceiling. It flipped down and scratched the last two agents before they registered its presence. Derek roared and leaped for its back. He would have to wound it quickly, deep enough to slow it down, since even a tiny slip and scratch would put him down.

More gunfire had begun in the front of the station. Back-up officers who had been off-shift or on patrol had arrived at the station.

Derek hit the kanima with all his weight, driving his claws into its shoulder joints and biting down on its neck. It screeched and writhed. Its tail lashed, smashing into glass and furniture, but Derek held on. If he could just break its neck –

The kanima tensed and flipped itself into the air. Derek lost his grip – claws raking out through dense muscle and scales, and nearly snapped his own neck before he managed to release his jaws. He slammed through a glass wall and a set of blinds and into the bullpen, hit and rolled back onto hands and knees. The kanima came through the broken glass and jumped onto a desk, sending the computer monitor and keyboard on it flying. It skidded on the files that had been next the computer as the rest fluttered to the floor. Its tail whipped from side to side, hitting a desk chair that rolled one way and then sent another monitor tumbling off the next desk. It was bigger than the last time Derek had glimpsed it.

The remaining emergency lights flickered unsteadily. The cruisers outside cast their own light inside through the shot out front windows: headlights, spotlights, and the red-blue-red cycle of their lightbars.

Black blood pumped from the wounds Derek had inflicted on the kanima, ran slick down its sides. Even it couldn't heal an alpha's wounds instantly. It leaped for Derek and he dodged away from its claws. It opened its jaws wide and screamed at him.

A dead deputy lay on the floor beside Derek. His knee felt warm where it rested in the man's blood and he winced. Just a few feet away, half under another desk, another deputy tried to crawl closer.

The kanima jumped to the next desk. Derek threw a desk chair at it and tried to lead it away from wounded deputy.

One of the deputies had recovered from the paralysis enough to prop himself on his elbows and take a shaky shot at the kanima. The bullet hit and it shrieked though the hole closed immediately. It reacted though and leaped up to hold onto the ceiling. The drop ceiling was nothing but thin-frosted plastic panels in thin frames over fluorescent bulbs. They broke and tore loose from the kanima's weight. It fell back to the floor, landing on its back with a heavy thud.

Derek tried to go for its throat while it was stunned, but even as his claws swiped through the kanima's neck deep enough it should have killed, its claws sank deep into his arm. He staggered back, already going numb, and fell across the deputy who had shot at it.

It wavered onto its feet, blood pumping from its throat, fell, then jerked its head up as the lights came on. The air seemed to pop, sounds coming louder, everything clearer. The ash line had broken.

It hissed in response to the barrier breaking. The thick musk of reptile faded and Derek struggled to keep breathing, starting to suffocate because of his own weight, his shifted faded back to human form. A vague gratitude moved through him that he'd fallen on the deputy's legs and he wasn't smothering him too. He heard voices and footsteps, more shouting, and the ear-splitting sirens sounding outside.

Hands caught at his shoulders and rolled him onto his back. The bullpen was still half dark even with the electricity restored, most of the overhead lights broken out by the kanima, but Derek could make out two blurred faces over him, then three.

"Fuck, Derek, you're heavy. Come on, Isaac, Jackson, help me get him out of here."

“Hey, I’m still healing,” Isaac complained. The worst of Derek’s fears eased off. If Isaac was healing, he’d be all right.

Derek would be too, as soon as the paralysis wore off. He blinked at whoever was leaning over him. The blurry face resolved into Stiles. He tried to move, but nothing even tingled. The groan that came from him wasn't voluntary, just air forced from his lungs as Jackson pulled him up into a fireman's carry.

"Go, go, go!" Stiles hissed. "The kanima's gone. I've got to find my dad, okay? I have to make sure he's okay. Just get out of here."

"Come on," Jackson grunted. "Lydia's got my car."

All Derek could see was Jackson's back as he was carried out. Isaac's hand closed on one of his flopping arms and steadied him as they lurched out the back of the station.

Night air filled his lungs as they made it to the parking lot. A car braked and Derek's head swung and hit the edge of the door as he was slung into the backseat. Isaac scrambled in after him. There was barely room for a man Derek's size without Isaac's long, lanky legs. Isaac ended up on top of Derek and crushing him as the car rocked with Jackson's weight and accelerated before he was even fully in the passenger seat.

"Jesus, Lydia!" Jackson exclaimed as the passenger door slammed on its own.

Derek could feel sticky wetness soaking into him from Isaac and realized it was Isaac's blood.

He found enough breath to ask. "You okay?"

"I will be," Isaac whispered.

"Jackson?" Derek said hoarsely. "Lydia?"

"We're okay," Jackson said. "Jesus. Jesus, they killed all those guys. Derek. Derek, my dad –"

Lydia took a corner without braking, slinging Derek headfirst into the driver's side. "Could someone tell me where the hell I'm going? Or should I just keep driving until we get stopped or run out of gas?"

Isaac rolled off Derek onto the foot wells. "The hospital," he croaked. "Jackson. Your dad was in there with me. It paralyzed him. I think he had a heart attack. It got all of us and I went down and then it gutted me. The FBI agents came in before it could finish." He pulled himself upright enough to rearrange Derek, so he was sitting, leaning against the backseat of the Porsche, and crawled up onto the seat.

Time had stretched and contracted like a rubber band. The attack had seemed to go on forever, but probably had lasted no more than ten minutes. Someone had alerted the rest of the police force the station was under attack or it would have gone on longer. But once the kanima and Gerard were gone, the surviving hunters had fled too.

Nowhere was very far from anywhere else in Beacon Hills. The ambulances would be at the station soon.

Lydia sent the Porsche into a bootlegger's turn and burned rubber. "They'll get him to the hospital, Jacks," she said in a grim voice.

"Why are you moving?" Jackson demanded. "Why isn't Derek better?"

Isaac braced Derek's lolling head. Lydia ran a red light and kept accelerating. "It got me first."

"It jumpstarted his healing when it cut him open," Derek mumbled.

"If I hurt you that would fix you faster?" Jackson demanded.

"Do it and I'll hurt you," Derek told him, but he was half ready to let Jackson break his arm or a finger, just to get over the paralysis faster.

~~~

 

Lydia parked the Porsche outside the hospital and went insidel with Jackson to find out if his father was there as soon as the first ambulances arrived, while Isaac sat with Derek until Derek could move again. They were far too bloody to be seen, especially when the blood was theirs, but they had no wounds. Isaac looked like a horror movie red-shirt – literally. His lacrosse jersey was torn and soaked from neck to hem.

Derek's dark jeans, Henley and leather jacket had fared better, in that a dark stain on dark fabric didn't show as much and could be anything. The arm of his jacket was shredded though.

He'd been thinking as the feeling came back into his limbs. The first sensation he really had was the warmth of Isaac's shoulder where Derek was propped against him.

"Are you healed?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," Isaac whispered. They stared forward toward the emergency room entrance. Five ambulances had careened up to it at high speed while they sat. Two victims per ambulance and as soon as they were offloaded into the emergency staff's care, the ambulances accelerated away, sirens and lights on as they headed back toward the police station.

They could see medical personnel dashing back and forth through the glass front doors. If Derek listened, he could hear the chaos inside as doctors and nurses tried to deal with bullet wounds, bloody slashes, multiple victims paralyzed, and, worst of all, the DOAs who began arriving after the initial wave.

Jackson hovered in the waiting area, Lydia beside him, and no one remarked on the blood stains on his lacrosse uniform. Stiles was there with them, having been repeatedly pushed out of the treatment areas until a security guard posted himself in front of the doors and glared. Derek watched him pace back and forth jerkily, talking at Jackson and Lydia, his hands moving manically.

Derek flexed his fingers. He felt weak and wobbly, but he could move.

They could run back to the train depot. Derek felt leery of that, though. The hunters would expect the wolves to retreat into the woods. They would have the best trails under watch or traps set up. Normally, Derek could detect and avoid either, but he didn't trust his senses tonight and Isaac didn't have enough experiences using his.

"Are the keys in the ignition?" he asked. Isaac looked. "No."

Derek raised his voice enough he knew Jackson would hear him inside the hospital. "Send Lydia out with the keys."

He would see the protest forming from where he sat.

"We both need clothes with no blood – so do you. We'll bring yours back here."

His Camaro was still parked in front of the police station. He couldn't risk going back there for it, if the hunters hadn't shot it up out of spite. He didn't see Stiles' atrocious Jeep anywhere in the parking lot and assumed he'd ridden in the ambulance with his father. If Jackson refused to give up his keys, they were going to have to steal something.

That would have some benefits, since the chaos of the attack on the police station meant patrols wouldn't care about small traffic violations. A stolen car might not even be reported until tomorrow and the hunters wouldn't be able to recognize it. But they'd get blood all over its interior, which would mean spending time cleaning it which they didn't have or torching it. Derek didn't want to steal someone's vehicle, never mind destroy it.

"They need the keys," Jackson told Lydia. She walked out of the waiting room like someone who just needed something from their car, a sweater or a phone charger. Her poise was remarkable. No one gave her a second glance as she reached the Porsche and opened it to lean inside.

She surveyed Isaac and Derek quickly. "Clean clothes. Get them for Jackson too – his house key is on the ring. She handed the keys to Derek as soon as he'd struggled out of the backseat. "I lost my phone at the school. Stiles and Jackson's phones are still in their locker. If you can get them, do. If not, we all need burners. You can get them at the Walmart." Her lip curled as she said that last and Derek imagined Lydia would rather wear sackcloth and ashes than anything from Walmart. "It opens at six. You shouldn't have to wait."

Derek checked the horizon and she was right. Dawn was approaching.

"Any other orders?" he asked her dryly.

"The Porsche will need to be detailed after you've cleaned the interior. You should go by the Sheriff's house too. Kira saw the kanima and she had Stiles' Jeep. Allison knocked Gerard out, which probably stopped the kanima, and took him away. Since I don't have my phone, I can't call her."

She walked back into the hospital.

Isaac settled into the passenger seat. "She's scary when she'd not pretending that she's an airhead," he said as Derek turned the key.

He kept the Porsche just over the speed limit and stopped at all the signs and lights and followed Lydia's plan since it made the most sense. They got into the depot, cleaned up, changed, and pushed everything they needed into three duffel bags, then drove out Hill Way Road to the Whittemore house. The three-car garage was empty; Mrs. Whittemore was gone, probably to the hospital herself. Isaac found cleaners in the kitchen and removed all the obvious bloodstains in the Porsche's backseat while Derek gathered up clothes and shoes for Jackson in a fancy gym bag. The expensive leather cleaned up better than fabric would have.

Everything was gray and chilly by the time they left the Whittemores’ and headed for the high school. Isaac scaled a wall and slid in through an unlocked access door on the roof, then went down to the lockers. Like every other kid who had gone to BHHS, Isaac knew the trick to popping the lockers without a combination and retrieved Jackson and Stiles' phones without difficulty.

Derek noted Allison's car still sat in the lot next to Lydia's.

At Walmart, he picked up prepaid phones for everyone including Stiles and Jackson on the assumption their phones might not be secure any longer. From there, they detoured past the Sheriff's house as the sun peeked over the mountains finally – morning always came late to Beacon Hills.

Stiles' Jeep sat in front of the garage. A quick check found the keys in the glove box. Kira must have gambled no one would steal the clunker even if they didn't know it belonged to the sheriff's son.

"I'll drive it to the hospital. Stiles' will want it," Isaac offered.

Derek handed him a handful of twenties. "Find a drive-thru and get food for everyone." He couldn't remember the last time he ate. The new wolves would need a meal even more than he did. "Just get some of everything."

It took a little time to find Jackson, Lydia and Stiles. They'd moved from the E/D waiting room to another on the second floor.

Jackson had stripped off his jersey and only had on a thin undershirt. Derek eyed Jackson's mother, but she was staring blankly at the floor, with one hand locked desperately on Jackson's arm.

Derek went to Lydia instead. He passed a good quality burner to her, then Jackson's gym bag, phone and the Porsche keys. "It's in the lot out front. Isaac did a good job on the inside, but a good detailing wouldn't hurt. There's an extra phone for him in the bag, too."

She nodded. Somehow, she'd managed to stay impeccably made-up and crisp, but Derek could smell her stress and exhaustion.

She shoved a key into his hand. "My mother's in Vale. No one will look for you and Isaac at my house. Please don't let Prada get out."

He really needed to talk with Lydia Martin. She was aligning herself with Derek and what was left of his pack and he wanted to know if it was for Jackson's sake or herself. Because he wanted her in his pack.

Derek walked over and set his hand on Jackson's shoulder firmly. He didn't speak, he didn't want to disturb Mrs. Whittemore, but he held Jackson's gaze when he looked up. Derek pressed his hand, then let go, and beckoned Stiles into the hallway. "Isaac got your phone and he's on his way with your Jeep." Stiles took the phone and shoved it carelessly in a pocket. Derek handed him a burner. "If you must call me, use this. Keep it on you. I'm in it as DH. The other numbers are for the other burners."

The elevator dinged and they both turned. Isaac exited with his arms full of fast breakfast.

"Oh, thank you, God," Stiles exclaimed and pounced. Isaac let him snag one bag. He held the rest out of reach until Derek lifted an eyebrow at him.

"Sausage biscuit sandwich and hash browns?"

Derek took the bag indicated. He smiled despite himself. This was what he'd ordered for himself the last time he picked up breakfast for the pack.

Stiles already had a hash brown chipmunked into one cheek and appeared to be trying to swallow an entire sausage biscuit whole. Derek had seen Stiles eat before and it never failed to make him wince. Especially as Stiles started trying to talk while he chewed. "Whrmkees?" he demanded, spraying crumbs.

"Never remark on my manners or how I was raised," Derek told him.

Stiles glared, shoved the rest of the biscuit into his mouth so that both cheeks bulged unattractively and snapped his fingers at Isaac.

Isaac tossed his keys at him. "They were in the glove box with a note from Kira. Her mom picked her up."

Derek hadn't met the girl, but he hoped that she could redirect Scott's focus from Allison. Not just because Allison was an Argent, either.

Stiles nearly choked himself swallowing all the food in his mouth. "You guys need to get out of here before someone sees you," he finally said.

"Your father?" Derek asked, though he could guess. Jackson looked sick and Mrs. Whittemore was in that empty hell that followed the shock and disbelief. Stiles was stuffing his face: Sheriff Stilinski was all right.

"Paralyzed, but he was starting to get feeling back when Nurse Ratchet chased me out of the room," Stiles said.

Isaac took the rest of the food in and gave it to Lydia.

Derek wavered over saying nothing and leaving, but decided it needed to be said. "Thank you. It was a trap."

"You wouldn't have been there if I hadn't told you about Isaac."

Isaac soft footed up behind Stiles, who hadn't heard him. Derek met Isaac's eyes.

"Isaac's pack. I needed to know. I needed to be there for him, even if it was a trap."

Isaac's Adam's apple bobbed.

"And we wouldn't have got out of there without you and Jackson and Lydia."

Stiles froze up, like he was shocked to be thanked, to have anything he'd done even acknowledged. Maybe he was

"Allison too," Stiles blurted. "Jackson told me – she zapped Grandpa Psycho and took him away. That probably made the kanima give up."

Derek didn't care to be in debt to any Argent, but some days he looked at Allison and didn't see an Argent.

"We should go," he said. They'd have to run get to Martin house. It was still early enough they could pretend to be morning joggers, but not for much longer.

 

**~~~November 23, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

 

Noah let himself sink down in one of the hospital's uncomfortable waiting room chairs next to SSA Hotchner. He needed to get back to the station. His station that was the scene of the worst massacre in Beacon Hills history. He hadn't wanted to leave in the first place, but the EMTs had insisted everyone who had been knocked out be taken in for blood tests and examinations. Hotchner had been in the same shoes as Noah.

Now they were waiting to hear about their wounded. Hotchner at least had to be thanking God he hadn't lost any of his people. The BAU team were more than work colleagues. They were closer to family, bound by blood and history and their shared dedication to the job. Noah didn’t have to know that history to see it in how they worked together. He’d experienced the same thing in the service. He recognized people who had been through the same fire together.

He missed having that himself, but as Sheriff, he couldn’t allow himself the same closeness with his deputies.

SSA Rossi had a bullet in his side. The doctors were waiting until his blood tests came back before operating, worried about anesthesia interacting adversely with whatever had been used at the police station. Noah knew that meant the wound wasn't immediately life threatening.

Agent Morgan needed stitches for a deep gash in his arm, but it had missed any tendons or veins. Noah heard him complaining earlier that he wanted to leave once he was bandaged up; he imagined the doctors wanted to keep Morgan, at least until they'd topped him up with a pint of blood to replace what he’d left on the interview room floor.

Agent Prentiss had been banged up and knocked out but come through all right.

Agents Reid and Jareau were still at the station along with their zaftig computer genie. She'd been crying silently as she helped Noah's day shift deputies move the wounded, reassuring those who were unhurt but still paralyzed.

Noah hadn't been as lucky as Hotchner. The BAU people had been in the back of the station; Noah's deputies had been in the front, working at their desks in the bullpen. He'd been in his office, on the phone with the state lab, trying to badger them into processing the evidence from the Lahey scene faster. The call had dropped without warning minutes before the first shot sounded from the lobby. He'd barely made it three steps from his office before something stung his neck and he fell. He'd had to lie face down, unable to move, unable to see, as his people were shot down.

Noah had thought he would stroke out, if one of their attackers didn't put a bullet through his head.

The fuckers had done that to Ken Logan and Fiona Morrow. Executed them as they lay helpless.

They weren't the only casualties by far.

Lou Patterson had been night shift dispatcher for twenty-six years. Jeff Brady had two kids. Findlay had been a dinosaur who Noah hadn't been able to shift, determined to stick until retirement age.

Penny Taub from the Public Defender's Office and Reg Perov, the assistant DA, had been at the front desk. Noree's replacement at the front desk had buzzed him that they both wanted to talk to him. Noah hadn't been looking forward to it.

Noree Washington was still out. Concussion and a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, but she'd be okay.

David Whittemore had had a stroke while he was trapped and paralyzed.

Too many hurt, too many dead, including three of the attackers. Noah was damned proud of his people for that. The bastards had come in with military grade weaponry, but the attack would have failed without the paralytic that affected so many of his people.

Tara and the FBI's girl Garcia were working on identifying the three dead men left behind. Noah didn't know if Stiles was at the hospital. He remembered his kid at the police station, in the chaotic aftermath, rolling Noah over, crying and begging him to be okay. Once he'd been able to talk, he'd told Stiles to go home, lock up and stay there. The odds Stiles had obeyed weren't worth betting on, as he'd been insisting on coming to the hospital with the ambulance carrying Noah and Hotchner.

God only knew what had happened to Isaac Lahey. His blood was all over, but he was gone. Hale was gone too in the chaos and Noah could hardly blame the man for running this time. Everything went to shit whenever he walked in the door.

Hotchner sat straight and still in his chair, hands resting on his knees. His dark suit didn't show blood stains the way Noah's olive and tan uniform did, but Noah knew they were there on the knees of his pants where Hotchner had knelt in Rossi's blood doing emergency first aid.

Noah could only see Hotchner's hatchet profile. He was staring straight forward. Maybe he was in shock too.

An orderly pushed a cart past, a wheel squeaking over the linoleum.

"Melissa will let us know if something changes with your agent," Noah said wearily. He'd have to notify the families. He needed to call Tom over in Shasta and see if the sheriff could spare some men to fill in for his day shift, who would be working all night. Modoc would send a couple of people, but they were chronically understaffed. Noah would probably have to reach out to Butte and Lassen as well and then talk to the CHP… He could modify one of the emergency management protocols in place for wildfires. At least that would give him a list of the first calls to make.

Hotchner tipped his head. "We got the profile wrong."

"Welcome to Team Regret."

Hotchner let out a rusty, humorless chuckle. "Already a member, Sheriff."

Prentiss joined them silently, handing Hotchner a paper cup of the swill the hospital passed off to visitors as coffee. Melissa had confided that the nurses had a coffeemaker of their own in their breakroom, where the brewed good stuff strong enough to keep them going when the interns were reduced to zombies. Prentiss had obviously obtained hers from the cafeteria. She'd cleaned up since they were brought in. Her ponytail was smooth and neat again, but most of her make-up was gone, emphasizing the ugly bruise coloring her jaw and cheekbone.

She curled her fingers around her own cup but didn't drink. Hotchner didn't do any more than hold his coffee either.

"I can hear Morgan complaining, so he's okay," Prentiss said eventually. "Phones are back up. JJ called. They found a home-made jammer in a garbage can down the street. Garcia's online again."

"We need to get back to the station, re-work the profile, throw every resource we have at this," Hotchner said quietly. The steel in his voice matched his unbending posture. "This is too organized. The unsubs are embedded in a dangerous organization, one unafraid of pretending to be or killing law enforcement. I want someone to drive that jammer directly to Sacramento."

Part of Noah wanted to object that his department could handle the investigation but that was stupid pride. They couldn't. This mess had exploded into something bigger than a local series of murders, bigger even than a pair of interstate serial killers. If the FBI wanted to take over, he was going to hand it over to them, so long as they kept him dialed in. His department wasn't equipped to contend with terrorists armed with military weapons, phone jammers, and more information than he had.

"Is this a terrorist group?" he asked.

"if it quacks like a duck," Prentiss said.

"If it quacks like duck, it could be a duck hunter," Hotchner replied. He got to his feet and discarded the untouched coffee in a can as Agent Morgan exited his curtained cubicle over the protests of a nurse. A white bandage contrasted brilliantly against his rich skin tone.

"Agent Morgan, you can't – " the nurse exclaimed in frustration as she trailed after him.

Morgan's gaze found Hotchner, Prentiss, and Noah. "Hotch, I'm ready to go."

"You lost a lot of blood," Prentiss remarked cautiously.

"t's all hands on-deck. I'm fine."

She looked at Morgan skeptically but said nothing more.

"I need you to stay here and watch out for Rossi while he's in surgery and afterward," Hotchner said.

"What? No, – "

"I can't spare Garcia or JJ," Hotchner told him, no hint of give in his expression. "If the media aren't howling for answers yet, they will be. Handling them is JJ's job. Garcia has her hands full. We're going to be digging through every domestic terrorism lead generated in the last six years, likely farther back too. We need Reid for that. You're wounded, Emily isn't."

"I can work – "

"Suck it up, buttercup," Prentiss told Morgan. She tossed her cup too.

Noah reached into his pocket for the keys to his cruiser and remembered he'd come to the hospital in an ambulance. Hotchner and Prentiss had as well.

Melissa solved his problem. She came out of the swinging doors to the front of the hospital lobby remonstrating Stiles, who flailed beside her, oblivious to any obstacles, bouncing off a gurney and another nurse as he babbled at Melissa. Melissa had that harassed and faintly wild look around her eyes she got when she reached her Stiles exposure limit.

"You can't look information up on the hospital system just because no one is at the desk, Stiles!" she snapped at him. She spotted Noah. "That information is confidential."

"What, I just looked at the admittance log, not anyone's files!" Stiles protested. "And shouldn't those be harder to access?"

"Noah," Melissa said. "Take him home." He translated that as _Take him away_.

"Dad!" Stiles cried when he realized Noah was there and wrapped him a convulsive hug.

Noah squeezed him tight, amazed by how close they were in height now, how broad Stiles’ shoulder were, and aching for the days when he still smelled like little boy, candy, dirt and Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo. These days Stiles usually smelled like teenage funk and too much body spray, with the same faint chemical whiff Noah associated with speed freaks from his Adderall prescription. He was so lucky to able to hold onto Stiles at all, between the dangers of his job and how he'd alienated Stiles by going back to the bottle. He was lucky Stiles even cared at this point.

When he let go, he scolded, "I told you to go home."

"You were still incoherent," Stiles dismissed.

Noah let it go. "You can give myself and these agents a lift back to the sta – the interim station and then you _will_ go home, no excuses, no detours, understood?"

Startled, Stiles took in Agents Hotchner and Prentiss. He’d been completely oblivious to their presence. His mouth hung open unattractively and Noah resisted the urge to use a finger under his son's chin to close it.

"Uh, right, sure. Uh. Roscoe sort of needs a good cleaning… "

"No one cares tonight," Noah said.

Hotchner nodded to him. He spoke quietly with Agent Morgan a moment longer, then he and Prentiss followed Noah and Stiles out. Stiles had parked in the nurse's lot, of course, out of habit from ferrying Scott to the hospital more than once for Melissa.

~~~

 

Reid let Garcia hold his hand. Hers trembled. She'd cleaned up and redone her make-up, but nothing could erase the terror she'd experienced from her eyes. Or all the fresh, up close death, when normally, she could distance herself through screens and photographs. But she'd been one of the few people left in the station who weren't wounded or paralyzed and after the shooting was over, she'd helped pull everything together.

She'd taken over the dispatching and 911 operations, coordinating with the ambulance services and fire department to bring in first responders once they were sure the attack was finished. She'd physically done the wiring to reconnect the station's wireless communications and made calls to Sacramento and neighboring counties for help.

After that, she'd had to supervise the transfer of everything because the station was a crime scene.

He doubted anyone would ever realize, much less thank Garcia for the amazing job she'd done, but he could sit and hold her hand, now that she had her computers up and running again. The conference room they used hadn't taken any damage.

The break room, where he and JJ had been meant to defend Garcia and Derek Hale, looked worse. Hale had upended the refrigerator to provide better cover for Garcia and then, according to her, he'd fought with someone in the dark.

By then Reid had been in the conference room trying to cover Rossi and Hotch, who had been trying to help Rossi before he went down too. He'd heard fighting, animal-like roars, and glass breaking, but hadn't been able to see anything.

The bullpen and lobby had been processed first, so the station could begin operations again. Work had gone on all night, as first California Highway Patrol officers and deputies from adjoining counties had arrived and then a veritable hornet's nest worth of state and federal agents and investigators began arriving after the long drive north from Sacramento.

Stilinski returned with Hotch and Emily as the sun rose and taken control. He had walked with them back to the conference room and said, "I have notifications to make, a call from the Governor's office, and a meeting with the DA, which means I'll be tied up from now to midnight. There's just a hell of a lot of clean up and re-organization to do. Do your thing and if you get a lead, take anyone you need to follow it up."

Hotch turned to Reid and JJ. "Morgan's at the hospital. He's waiting for Dave to come out of surgery."

"He's going to be okay, though, sir, isn't he?" Garcia asked tremulously.

"Yes."

"Oh, thank God." Reid felt the relief flood through her as her tense hold on his hand loosened.

"JJ, with Reid. Emily, with me. BOLOs on Hale and Isaac Lahey as possible kidnap victims. Morgan said Lahey was wounded. Garcia, get everything on Argent Arms and all of the Argents. We're bringing them in for questioning."

"Yes sir," she whispered.

"What about the profile?" JJ asked.

Hotch shook his head. "It's too late. We know who the unsubs are, now we need to prove it." He pushed his exhaustion down. "I know you're all tired, but we have to keep on this."

~~~

 

The expensive house in the better part of Beacon Hills had a hollowed-out sense to it. Hotch recognized the feeling, even though Haley and Jack hadn't been living with him when Foyet found them. The loss had followed when he brought Jack home after Haley's death, though, and he'd felt her absence in every room of their house – the house that had been empty while he lived in an apartment and Haley and Jack were in witness protection. There was a quiet that made every room feel too big, every action too loud.

He'd seen something like the look in Chris Argent's pale blue eyes in his own mirror too.

But Haley had been murdered and Victoria Argent had killed herself. No one in Hotch's family was a mass murderer.

They needed to take another look at Victoria Argent's death too, the same way they'd had to re-examine Laura Hale's. Suicide seemed terribly unlikely now.

Their two unsubs were very good at making things look like what they weren't.

He wondered that the man was back in the house where his wife died. He'd been at the same hotel as the team until today. They'd checked for him there first.

"SSA Hotchner," he identified himself and displayed his credentials. He indicated Emily. "SA Prentiss." The four deputies behind him all had their hands on the butts of their guns. Only one of them was Beacon County, but all of them were wired and paranoid after the station attack.

Argent's eyes flickered, assessing, before he nodded and pulled the door open wider and invited them inside. Two deputies stayed outside.

"What can I do for the FBI?" Argent asked.

Quiet footsteps snapped everyone's attention to the stairs and the teenage girl on them. Allison Argent looked too thin, too pale, and too tense. Her dark gaze settled on her father. Hotch frowned at her thoughtfully. Allison Argent's eyes were nearly as dark as Emily's. Argent's eyes were pale blue. Victoria Argent's eyes had been blue as well.

"We need to interview you at the police station," Hotch said bluntly. He found their reactions interesting. Allison looked ill. Argent tensed but no more than anyone would.

"All right," Argent said slowly. "Let's go then. Allison, I'd appreciate it if you stayed at home today. No running around town."

"We'd like to interview Allison again as well," Emily said.

Argent hardened at that. "Not alone," he said.

"It's okay, dad," Allison said. She smiled stiffly at Emily. "Come with me and I'll change my shoes and get my purse and phone."

Hotch watched them go upstairs, struck by their similar coloring. Allison Argent and Emily Prentiss could easily be sisters or cousins, but all the other Argents were blue or hazel-eyed blonds.

Argent watched too and then said, "It will take her a minute or two extra. We moved all her things to another room after Vic – " His voice broke. "The house is on the market." He stared up the stairs. "She shouldn't have done that in Allison's room."

Hotch made a note of that because he found it slightly off. Argent didn't say his wife shouldn't have to killed herself, only that she shouldn't have done it in their daughter's room. At the same time, it inclined Hotch to believe Argent hadn't been present or even complicit.

"I loved her," Argent said quietly. He still had his wedding ring on. "It didn't start that way, but I loved Victoria. She could have talked to me. We could have found a way." A muscle rippled in his cheek. "I'm not my father."

"Where is your father?" Hotch asked. "And your sister? We need to speak with them as well."

Argent turned grim. "Not here. I threw him out. He's probably at Kate's."

"Address?" Hotch asked.

Argent hesitated, then relayed it.

Emily and the girl were at the top of the stairs, apparently discussing how much heel a boot could have before it became impossible to run in it. Hotch hurried to ask before Allison was in earshot. "Why did you throw him out?"

Bitter and sad, Argent said, "You'll see when you meet Kate." The sound he made then was almost a sob. "I remember her before."

~~~

 

"We've got preliminary IDs on the three dead attackers," Morgan told them when they arrived back at the temporary station. His arm was in a sling, but he appeared showered and in fresh clothes, which put him ahead of the rest of the team.

"Rossi?" Emily asked.

"Out of surgery and awake," Morgan reported. In a lower voice, he said, "He's in a private room. I left my back-up piece with him."

Emily wasn't positive leaving a loaded weapon in the hands of someone on heavy-duty painkillers post-operation was a wise decision, but she got that Morgan wanted to be back in the thick of the investigation.

"Anything more on the Argents?" she asked instead of questioning his action. She'd let Hotch rip him a new one, probably whenever they closed this case and were flying home.

"Garcia's got some stuff."

Reid waved them over to a new whiteboard with three headshots pinned up on it. "Titus Ulrich, Guilliame Leveque, and Adolphus 'Dolph' Smith," he said.

"Jerks and creeps," Garcia commented without leaving her work at the computer.

"Smith is the one who impersonated Agent Tyhurst," Reid said. "He was a state trooper in Oklahoma. He was suspended for using undue force in multiple incidents, then terminated after a violent altercation with another officer in which he discharged his weapon several times. That officer was killed during a traffic stop five months later that was very likely an ambush. Since leaving the Oklahoma State Police, he's been mostly off the grid, except contract security guard jobs with Argent Arms."

"Leveque is French, former military, and worked for Argent Arms International until Estelle Argent's death. He drops off the grid at that point and doesn't surface under his own name until he ended up in the morgue."

"I'm running facial recognition on him in the areas where Gerard Argent has lived and I've already got hits," Garcia said.

"Titus Ulrich is a former Marine, dishonorably discharged seven years ago. DUIs and assault charges, and his ex-wife had a regularly renewed restraining order against him."

What a charming threesome, Emily thought. She had met terrorists, vicious arms dealers, and several serial killers who she'd rather have a drink with on a rainy night. These men were the ugliest side of humanity, because they chose violence and enjoyed it, because they were lazy bullies, not like the warped and tortured creatures the BAU generally hunted. Those warped individuals very often had little choice or control of what they'd become.

It was always the ones who were self-aware enough to stop and chose not to that she hated. It was the ones who were self-aware but couldn't stop themselves that she pitied most.

~~~

 

JJ wanted to punch Kate Argent in the face within five minutes. After ten, she wanted to lock her up. They didn't have proof yet, but JJ knew she was one of their unsubs.

She ignored JJ as much as possible while flirting with Reid. Trying to flirt with Reid would be more accurate since he acted oblivious to the way she leaned toward him, touched her fingers to her lips, lowered her eyelashes and in general modeled sexual availability. But modeled was the proper word, JJ thought as she observed, because it was an act.

No, JJ corrected herself, not an act. Kate's flirting was bait. The sexual hunger was real. She looked Reid up and down and liked what she saw well enough. But she misunderstood Reid too, she thought he was easy, a pretty, geeky young man, lacking in sexual confidence, inexperienced with women. She played the wrong tune to attract Reid, who valued intelligence and integrity over obvious beauty and sexual prowess.

Beyond the lowest common denominator of sexually mature heterosexual female and heterosexual male, Kate Argent wouldn't ring any of his bells.

It was sort of amusing to see her frustration grow and begin slipping out past the cracks in her mask, until JJ glimpsed the rage flowing like lava. Kate had been enjoying herself while she thought she was in control and could play Reid (and she'd dismissed JJ completely, something JJ suspected she did with most or all women).

Her tone and her words stayed sweet, but JJ knew that was a sweetness like ethylene glycol and just as poisonous. Honey and sweet and antifreeze and venom.

"It's Katherine Argent, right?" JJ asked her. "With a K?"

Kate gave her an annoyed look. "Yes."

"Ever been married? Used a husband's name?"

"No. What's with these stupid questions?"

"Just making sure the information we've got is accurate."

"Oh, you're the secretary," Kate said.

JJ schooled her face into a blank, but she knew she was going to be sharing an _Oh my God_ with Emily later.

She asked a series of rote questions. Date of birth, place of birth, education. "College?"

Kate shrugged. "I went to work for Argent Arms after high school. There really isn't a degree for what I do."

"What is that exactly?" Reid asked.

"Developing contacts, demonstrating weapons, finding out which departments are upgrading their armories and convincing them we have the best deal for their money," Kate told him. She smiled up at him through her lashes and laughed, inviting him to laugh with her. "Shmoozing. People like to tell me things."

"And that's it?"

Kate's smile took on a sharper, secretive edge. "Oh, I do a little troubleshooting too."

_I'll bet_ , JJ thought.

"And your brother? He works for the family firm too?"

"Chris." Kate sat back and smirked. Her disdain showed clearly. "He did. He was always more of an accountant, though. Legal crap, numbers. Boring." She rolled her eyes. "He quit last year. Didn't like 'the direction' we were taking, thought it would be better for his family if they stopped moving around."

"He does have a daughter. Moving can be hard on children," Reid said. Priming the pump.

"Oh, Allison's fine," Kate dismissed. "Chris and Vicky have always been over-protective." She leaned forward just a little, squeezing her arms close to her torso to emphasize her breasts. JJ felt surprised she was wearing something with a plunging neckline. Reid registered her inviting body language, but his gaze didn't linger.

JJ studied Kate's hands. They weren't as girly as she liked to present herself; in fact, Kate wasn't completely the pretty woman as she played at being. Kate's nails were manicured and polished soft pink but short. Her hands themselves had gun calluses. No surprise, there, she worked with guns. Her arms were muscled though, and she moved, when she wasn't thinking about it, like someone in the military.

Her boots reminded JJ of Emily's: expensive, handmade leather with chunky heels. They hadn't searched her. JJ thought that had likely been a mistake. She'd give odds Kate had at least one knife hidden in those boots.

"Personally," Kate confided, "I think Chris knew Vicky was getting a little – " she whirled her hand at her temple, miming crazy, " – whack a doodle doo, you know? Moving to Mayberry was probably supposed to be less stressful. Too bad it didn't work for her."

Zero compassion for her sister-in-law, her brother, or her niece JJ noted. In fact, the impugning of Victoria Argent's mental stability sounded rehearsed.

"Mayberry," Reid repeated. "Beacon Hills is a little bit of a backwater. What brought you here?"

"Well, Chris and Allison of course. They're both having a hard time."

"Interesting. You arrived in Beacon Hills and rented your present address before your sister-in-law killed herself."

"Well, I knew she wasn't right. They needed my help before Vicky offed herself." Kate narrowed her eyes. She'd begun to realize she wasn't as in control of this interview as she'd thought.

"In fact, you've been in Beacon Hills before," JJ stated and Kate's attention snapped to her for the first time. "Six years ago. Only you were using the name Katie Da Silva at the time."

"It was my married name," Kate gritted out.

"Curious, since you just told us that you have never been married or used a husband's name," Reid observed.

Kate took several deep breaths and JJ tensed, ready for her to come across the table they were sitting at, as violence almost steamed off her.

"Fine," Kate said eventually. "I met a guy and had a drunken weekend in Vegas. I used his name for about six months before I found out the marriage wasn't legal."

"Another thing that isn't legal is misrepresenting yourself as a college graduate with a degree in physical education to take a job with public school like Beacon Hills High School."

"Oh, for God's sake, I was substituting. I basically was a lifeguard, which I do have a certificate for," Kate said after a pause. Her fingers were curled tight into her palms and her knuckles were white.

"Under another identity," JJ said. "That is a crime. One of several. I suggest you obtain legal representation when this interview concludes. Both the county and the state will be charging you will felony misrepresentation, fraud, and multiple counts of endangering minors."

Kate smiled at her. "Look at me. You think a jury is going to find me guilty of more than a misdemeanor?" She assumed a prim posture and an earnest expression. "I was misled by a bad man, I was afraid to go to my father and ask for help, I had no idea it was misrepresentation, no one asked me for any special credentials. I just wanted a job and to help young people." She morphed back into the sharp-edged woman who radiated threat. "Argent Arms can afford very good lawyers."

"I'm sure," JJ said.

"Oh, come on, you didn't get hit with the ugly stick, you can't tell me you haven't used that face and body to get where you want to be." Kate laughed. "Everything's a weapon, after all."

~~~

 

Allison Argent was almost what she seemed to be. The trifecta that every parent dreamed of getting in their kid: smart, beautiful and nice.

Her mother's suicide had wounded her to the core. Her grief and confusion were genuine.

But Allison had an iron center that wound couldn't touch.

She knew much more than she was saying and she exactly how to only say enough and in generalities to answer their questions without providing anything helpful at all.

She loved her family, but the closest they came to cracking her poise came when they asked about her grandfather and aunt.

"Your father made your grandfather leave your house," Emily said. "Do you know why?"

Allison shrugged and looked unhappy. "They don't really get along. Grandpa wasn't happy when dad decided to leave the company and come here."

"Your grandfather's never done anything that you found disturbing."

She flinched and blinked hard, but then answered in a bland voice, "He likes pickled pigs' feet; that's disturbing."

"Did you know your aunt spent time here six years ago?"

"I guess I knew. Not when, but she told me I was going to super bored here."

"And have you been?"

A strained laugh escaped her. "No. I have – had – a boyfriend mom and dad hate. Not boring."

"The boyfriend? That's Scott McCall?"

Allison sighed at his name.

"He's sweet." The smile faded. "He was. But he doesn't listen."

Emily's brows shot up. "What do you mean?"

Allison shrugged. "Maybe it's a boy thing. Lydia says they're all like that. It's like somewhere between your lips and their ears, everything you say turns into what they want you to be saying."

That made Emily snort. "Oh, yeah, that. – Did your mom and dad object to him because they thought he would try to control what you say or do?"

"No. Scott doesn't come off that way. I think dad would like him, if he wasn't – " Allison stopped and visibly tried to work out what to say instead of what she'd started to confide.

"Wasn't?" Emily prompted.

"Scott _Delgado_ McCall."

"You parents object to him because he's Hispanic?"

Allison looked uncomfortable now, either with her parents feeling like that or painting them with the discrimination brush when they weren't.

"Maybe. They didn't want me dating 'someone like him' and his mom's a nurse who doesn't make a lot of money and Scott's wonderful, but he's not," Allison looked shame-faced, "not super smart. He's not dumb, it's just people like Lydia and Stiles and Danny are so smart they make him look bad. And he doesn't try hard in class."

Emily hummed. "Most parents don't think anyone is good enough for their kid."

"Grandpa said mom and dad should kill Scott," Allison said softly. "That they should make sure I couldn't be with 'one of them'." She looked down at the table. "I was listening from the dining room when they were in the kitchen. Grandpa said some other stuff that was really… "

_Disturbing_ , Emily supplied silently.

"Nasty."

"I'm sorry."

"He said it about me and if I'd slept with Scott. Dad told Grandpa to get out and stay away from me. Aunt Kate too. – And, yesterday, he took me to a lawyer's office and re-did his will. He had the lawyer set up to execute it instead of anyone else. He'd already set it up before that neither of them would be my guardian if something happened to him and mom."

"Do you know why, if there was something more than the conversation you heard, your father distrusts your grandfather and aunt?" Emily asked. She'd got more than she expected.

"No." That was a lie. One Allison wasn't comfortable with telling.

~~~

 

Hotch tried not to use or even think the word evil about the unsubs the BAU pursued. It got in the way of understanding how they thought, why they needed to do the horrific things they were driven to do. He thought that mostly 'evil' was a concept people used to avoid thinking about why and how darkness grew inside them, so they could assign the choices they made to an outside force.

If someone was evil, then the community around them had no responsibility for that. No one had failed, no one had warped and wounded and broken the unsubs, no one had failed to see or help them before it was too late. Blaming actions on evil was just a way to shuffle out from under guilt. Evil as an outside force denied free will.

So, he had little patience with the religious concept of evil, of the devil, of sin.

But he knew some people embraced the ugliness inside them, fed it, as if Rappaccini had tended his own plants and become poisonous to the touch himself. Some people were toxic for no visible or traceable reason.

They knew they were doing harm, they weren't sociopaths unable to empathize enough to care about anyone else, they weren't true sadists, but above all, they were perfectly capable of not doing the things they wanted to do. They could stop themselves.

They weren't broken.

They were just wrong. If there was evil, they were evil.

Gerard Argent made the hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck stand up.

"Unfortunate, unfortunate," Gerard Argent remarked, then coughed into a dark handkerchief, the sound wet and unpleasant as the man himself.

Hotch wasn't a man prone to fantastic imagery. He'd never appreciated fairy tales or poetry. He'd liked math, physics, the law. Yet he thought Gerard seemed subtly shrunken, his skin too dry, mottled – surely that was age not scales – ready to crack open and reveal something oozing and monstrous just beneath.

"I'm ill," Gerard said.

"What is it?" Morgan asked. Hotch wished Rossi was here instead. Rossi could outthink even the wiliest ones and he could be patient. Morgan still bulled through things too often. It was why they sent Prentiss in on interrogations, Prentiss or Rossi; JJ or Reid if they wanted the person being questioned to feel more powerful; Hotch if intimidation was necessary.

"Cancer."

"I'm surprised you're in Beacon Hills and not somewhere where you could receive better treatment for it," Hotch said.

Gerard patted at his lips. "Oh, well, barring a miracle, there's not much point. I wanted to spend my time closer to my family. Perhaps get to know my granddaughter better. Kate and Chris, of course. None of us had any sense poor Victoria was so depressed. But at least we're here."

"Here, but not with your son and granddaughter. Your son made you leave his house."

"Chris was upset." Gerard had a shark's dead gaze. "He felt like I was trying to take over. You must know how fathers and sons are."

Giving nothing away of his reflections, Hotch replied, "I have a son. I know how fathers are." Hotch's father was a man of good manners, good breeding, good education, an old money lawyer in a suit, respected throughout the community. And at home, at night, drunk, he was a heavy-handed monster. He died of cancer eventually.

But Hotch's father hadn't made his skin crawl.

"Perhaps he was upset over the trust funds set up by his mother for himself and his sister that you were to administrate until they reached their majority." Hotch looked at his notes, then up to Gerard, wearing his own federal bureaucrat mask, the face of the implacable, disinterested juggernaut of government. "You've continued to disburse funds from them. Fraudulently."

"Christopher and Katherine are uninterested in managing the money. They left it to me."

"I see. They would confirm this if I asked them? If they were shown the paperwork and financial transactions over the last two decades."

"I don't appreciate your insinuations."

"I'm sure you don't, but that isn't an answer to my question."

"I won't sit here and be treated like a criminal."

"You will unless you want to be arrested like one," Morgan snapped.

"Tell us about your brother Alexander," Hotch said.

"What the hell?"

"He killed himself eighteen years ago. Not too far from here," Hotch went on. "At the Glen Capri Motel."

"I know where my brother died," Gerard exclaimed angrily.

"He shot himself in the head after cutting himself open the way your daughter-in-law did."

A particularly horrible death according to the police reports. The coroner's conclusion had been that Alexander Argent had been in such agony from his initial attempt at suicide that he'd shot himself to escape the pain of the slower death from evisceration. Argent had also had dog bites on his thighs and above his hip on one side.

"Any idea why he killed himself?"

"It was eighteen damn years ago. He was weak."

An interesting answer that wasn't one at all. Hotch suspected Gerard knew why Alexander killed himself and why Victoria did also. In fact, all the Argents knew why Victoria Argent died.

~~~

 

"Alexander Argent came to see you the day before he killed himself," Reid said to Chris.

"Yes."

"He didn't say what he planned?"

"No, he didn't."

"Why did he come see you then?"

"Allison."

"He wasn't there when she was born?"

"No. We weren't close. He and dad didn't get along at all. I was surprised when he showed up. He gave us a gift and then he left."

"He didn't mention being attacked by a large dog? He had several bite wounds at the time of his death. They must have been painful."

"He didn't say anything about a dog biting him," Chris stated flatly. "What the hell does it matter? How is this relevant?"

"There's no record of him seeking any sort of medical care for the bites or the incident."

"Incident," Chris muttered.

"Yes," Reid said, frowning. "An accident. A recent one. The wounds had only begun to heal according to the pathologist's report."

Chris stared past Reid.

"Your wife had animal scratches on her arm."

"So I was told," he replied tonelessly. "I never saw… She had a bandage… when I found her."

Reid changed tacks. "Your father and sister travel a lot. There doesn't seem to be a reasonable connection to the Argent Arms business."

"Kate does her own thing," Chris said. "My father… does a lot of scouting, networking, but a lot of the deals fall through. People don't like him after being around him for too long."

"Including you?"

"He's my father."

Which was an answer in its fashion. Liking had very little to do with families in his experience as a profiler. Love and loyalty persisted without it. Only the very lucky were privileged to like the people they are related to. Out of all the people in anyone's life, family would have wronged them most often and most painfully. But people forgave and forgave and forgot.

Sometimes, Reid thought they'd be better off if they didn't, if they could cut ties before they were too damaged to disguise.

"Did you know your sister had misrepresented her identity and credentials to obtain a teaching position at Beacon Hills six years ago?" Reid asked. "And that she has done so on other occasions in other parts of the country?"

"Is fraud and false identification a federal crime?"

"It can be. Interstate." Not to mention Argent Arms' involvement through their family provided more than enough to look at them as domestic terrorists. Post-9/11, the grounds for an investigation were flexible. A police station massacre that involved automatic weapons provided more than enough evidence to investigate any arms dealer.

Chris scrubbed at his face. "No, I wasn't aware she'd ever been here until recently or that she'd done… what you say… anywhere else. God."

"Did your sister ever start fires?" Reid asked.

Chris jerked his head up. "What?"

"Fires. As a child. Was she interested in fire?" They had Kate as the arsonist of the unsub pair.

"I – what? No. I don't – I'm nine years older than Kate."

Reid didn't need to consult notes. "You left for college the same year your mother died."

"Kate and I were never close. She and dad were always closer. She seemed happy whenever I saw her."

"And before?"

"Seriously, no, I never knew her to play with matches."

"Bedwetting?"

"Kate!?" Chris looked disgusted. "I don't know."

He was lying. Not about the fire-starting, but that was something Kate would have hidden. Living in the same house, bedwetting was harder to conceal.

"Pets?"

"What the hell is this about? Pets – " He shut up. Chris Argent was an educated man. At some point in his life, he'd learned about the serial killer precursor triad: bedwetting, fire-starting, and torturing and killing small animals. "Oh, Jesus."

~~~

 

"We don't have enough to hold any of them," Morgan said sourly.

"I don't think Allison is actively involved," Emily added. "She's recently discovered something big enough to change her feelings toward her grandfather and aunt. She's still in shock over her mother's suicide, though, so some of her reactions are difficult to read. She indicated her family objected to her involvement with Scott McCall because he's Hispanic."

"You think these are racial hate crimes?" Hotch asked. He didn't quite sound doubtful. They could read him, though.

Emily pursed her lips then blew out a breath. "I think they started as hate crimes, but not necessarily racially motivated, despite what Allison wanted me to assume."

"Hate crimes are almost exclusively focused on religion, ethnicity, sex, sex orientation and or gender identity, nationalities, physical appearance, disabilities or language," Reid piped up.

"The fire victims were all families or pseudo-families," Emily picked up and began dismissing possibilities. "Different genders, orientations, ages, no obvious disabilities. All English speakers, all US citizens.

"The fire victims skewed primarily Caucasian," JJ pointed out.

"On the face of it but look at Scott McCall – he doesn't look particularly Hispanic and his name doesn't identify as Hispanic. Garcia, dig deeper."

"On it, oh my captain," she promised, "but I can already give you some information."

"What?"

"They're mostly Caucasian, but the victim families had a lot of American Indian and Mexican ancestors," Garcia said. "Most of them had been in one place for a long time, like longer than some places have been states. The Hale family land goes back to a Spanish land grant and reading between the lines, the Spanish had married at least one local Indian."

"Ethnicity," JJ said.

"Don't dismiss religion," Reid said. "After anti-Jewish pogroms and Manual I's decree of expulsion, most Spanish Jews were exiled. Many _conversos_ secretly continued to adhere to Judaism while publicly performing as Catholics."

"Crypto-Judaism," Emily identified and if she wasn't as brilliant as Reid, she was still razor sharp and kept up with him as well or better than anyone except Hotch. Sometimes she was faster; she had a nerd side that matched up with many of Reid's interests. "Wasn't there a group in Portugal that kept their true religion hidden until the 20th century?"

"There was," Reid confirmed. As always, other people's knowledge gratified him. "They practiced endogamous marriage."

"You think the Hales and the other families were Jewish?" Morgan exclaimed dismissively.

"The Mexican Inquisition conducted _autos de fé_ as part of the oppression of indigenous peoples in New Spain after enslaving them for labor and forcing their conversions," Reid said. "In addition, the Law of Pure Blood was aimed at making sure any New Christians weren't allowed to immigrate out of fear they were still secret Jews who might establish a strong presence in their colonies. The Hales could be descendants who have held onto either a native religion or a non-orthodox version of Catholicism that was condemned by the Inquisition."

"Oh, so you think our unsubs are part of the Inquisition," Morgan mocked. "Sure. The Pope's behind this."

"Don't be an ass, Morgan," Emily snapped. "Something links all the fire victims. It could be religion."

"Yeah, but you're asking me to believe the Hales are secret Aztecs and our unsubs think they're the Spanish Inquisition."

"Mexican Inquisition, actually," Reid corrected mildly.

"Are you saying no one takes religion seriously enough to kill over it anymore, Morgan?" Emily asked. "Really?"

"Fine, you're right, but this is a pretty outré theory."

"It was meant more as an example, actually."

"Look, what the Hales or anyone else were hiding isn't pertinent right now. We need more evidence before we can arrest Gerard and Kate Argent," Morgan stated. "We need to focus on that." He looked at Hotch. "Will the son roll on them?"

Hotch shook his head. "Distancing himself is as far as he'll go. I'd guess he's as much a believer as they are – "

"More," Reid said. "Gerard and Kate are using whatever belief system they have to rationalize their own sadistic compulsions. On some level, Chris recognizes that, but he's unwilling to face the truth, as it would require upending his entire belief structure as well as turning on his family and, likely, incriminating or even endangering himself as an accomplice or conspirator."

"We have evidence to arrest Kate on the false ID and misrepresentation charges, which constitute fraud in that she accepted payment from the school district," Hotch said. "That's enough to get warrants to search her residence and look for more."

"And Gerard?" Morgan asked.

"Considering the questionable circumstances in which he took over as school principal and that his daughter previously pretended to be a teacher there," Hotch said, "I can get a judge to get us warrants to search his properties and belongings as well. He's been playing fast and loose and getting away with it up to now. We can take advantage of that arrogance."

"Meanwhile, they walk?"

"Meanwhile, we release them, but have a deputy shadow each of them," Hotch ordered.

~~~

 

Five hours after that, surveillance lost Gerard and Kate Argent. The Butte County officer watching them had followed them to a hotel, watched them check in and got comfortable. He never saw them leave or the dark SUV that picked them up on the far side of the hotel. As far as he was concerned, they were tucked up in their rooms all night.

No one would realize differently until the next morning.

 

 


	5. Part Five

**~~~November 24, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

 

Gerard despised the crepe texture his skin had taken on as age and illness warped the body he'd had in his youth.

It had never looked like this.

He'd set his pet to kill another werewolf last night. Some omega named Hudson. There had been no chance she knew where either alpha was. Gerard just wanted something dead.

His remaining men had brought the werewolf to Kate's place and they'd strung her up in the barn. Afterward, he'd sent them on their way and let Kate's other side out.

How the girl had screamed, even after she was paralyzed. It infuriated Gerard that werewolves endured so much and still healed. He hated them because even half of what he'd done to Carrie Hudson would have killed him, even in his prime. They had no right to their gifts. They were all monsters.

He left half of her hanging from the loft beam.

But now he was looking at the cost of using his pet.

A patch of reptilian scales just under his left pectoral.

He searched his body and found more, on his calf, on his hip, on the underside of his bicep, just under his shoulder blade. He found a mottling on his skull just over his ear that he'd dismissed as another damned age spot.

He had to find Hale.

But he couldn't, the monster was too good at hiding.

Gerard peeled his lips back in a smile. If he couldn't run Hale down, then he would make Hale come to him.

He had two of Hale's betas, thanks to Leveque – he would miss Leveque – but they didn't know where he was. No matter what his men did, he couldn't make either of them howl for him. The irony that they'd abandoned Hale but wouldn't betray him now tasted bitter to him.

He'd have to use McCall. His granddaughter's former boyfriend could be persuaded, with the right lies and leverage, to tell Gerard what he needed to know. He was sure of it.

Even to help, Gerard imagined.

It was why he hadn't killed the beast before.

The boy had a mother and a best friend, after all.

  

**~~~November 26, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

 

 Scott asked to borrow the car. His mom agreed on the condition he drove her to work and picked her up when her shift ended. She wasn't walking home in the dark or wasting money on a taxi. They were both silent during the drive. He could have been a taxi driver. It was awful.

He walked inside with her, though, and waited until she'd double-checked when she got off. She didn't hug him the way she would have before, but she did brush his hair out of his eyes. "You're getting shaggy," she said, the way she always did. He leaned into that touch, because it was the first since she'd seen what he'd become.

"I love you, mom," he said, his voice shaking, because this was what he'd been afraid of from the first: that he was a monster now and everyone would turn away from him.

Her voice shook too. "Oh, Scott, I love you too. That can never change. You're my _son._ "

He blinked back tears.

"Now, go, or you'll be late to your first class. If you don't keep your grades up, you won't be able to play lacrosse." She knew how much he'd wanted to play lacrosse. He still did. It was a thrill he'd dreamed about and the only good thing about being a werewolf. Even if Derek was a spoilsport who insisted Scott hide how good he really was now.

"And don't you dare forget to pick me up tonight, Scott Delgado McCall," his mom called as he headed for the doors. "Or you'll never get the keys to anything again in your life!"

He walked out smiling.

~~~

 

"Good morning, Mr. McCall," Gerard said from behind him as Scott put the key in the lock of Mom's sedan. Scott jerked, jumped, and spun around. The old man stood several feet away, but now that Scott was paying attention, he could hear the heartbeats and breathing of two other people nearby. Hunters waiting to shoot him if he did anything.

"What now?" he demanded petulantly. He'd heard through the grapevine that all the Argents – even Allison – had been questioned by the FBI the day before.

They were in trouble, because Scott knew the sort of resources the FBI had. Summers he'd had to spend staying with his dad he'd heard all about it. War stories, his dad called them, but they were all really excuses for ducking out of Scott's life when Mom threw him out.

He'd always buy stuff he thought Scott should want, instead of paying his child support. His dad sucked and Scott was glad he hadn't heard from him in two years.

"My dear child, I am sure that your lovely mother taught you better manners than this," Gerard taunted. "But I will come to my point."

Scott rubbed his fingers against the thighs of his jeans. It reminded him to keep his claws in.

"I want Derek Hale."

"You're the hunter, why can't you get him without me?" Scott asked. "I'm just a teenager."

"Yes, and not a terribly smart one, but you are a Hale Bite. He will come if you call him."

"He doesn't trust me," Scott argued. He'd made sure of it. He hadn't realized it was going to cost him Stiles, but it looked that way. Stiles would only put up with Scott being a douche for so long. Even if he didn't like Derek any more than Scott did, treating him unfairly would eventually be more than Stiles' internal code could accept.

Part of Scott was okay with that, because he was still angry at Stiles for taking him out to the Preserve that night, even though he could have refused. He didn't need Stiles so much now. Pissing Stiles off made it easier for Scott to distance himself from Stiles. It wouldn't be his fault if Stiles \

Scott wasn't brilliant, but he wasn't stupid when he sat down and made himself think as he had after Peter's death.

He thought about how he ended up bitten. He thought about what they knew Peter had done. He figured out that there wasn't much purpose to blaming Derek for things that happened when he wasn't even in the state. It didn't mean he had to like the guy, but Allison had told him her side of things when she sat down and broke up with him, along with everything the Argents had done to the Hales.

Derek had pretty good reasons for disliking and distrusting the Argents, but he hadn't lumped Allison in with them automatically. He'd even got her out of the firing line when Kate and Peter had their Mexican stand-off.

He wasn't a nice guy, but Derek wasn't the bad guy.

Scott was pretty sure he was talking to the real bad guy. That's why he'd gone to Deaton after Allison broke up with him.

Deaton had promised he would do something about Gerard. Scott wished he'd already gotten around to it.

"Make him trust you," Gerard told him. He smiled and Scott's skin crawled. "You know, it's good of you to walk your mother into the hospital and pick her up at night. Parking lots can be dangerous for a woman alone. Something could happen to her so easily. Too bad you can't always be there, isn't it?"

Scott didn't have asthma attacks any longer. But it felt like his lungs were tightening and his throat closing the way they used to only a few months back. He remembered the way fear clamped down and he couldn't breathe. This was the same, only the fear was for his mother.

"What are you saying?" he choked out.

Gerard widened his eyes in mock innocence. "Why, nothing, Mr. McCall."

"Are you threatening my _mom!?"_

"Why would I threaten your mother? She seems to be a fine _human_ being – perhaps a little lax in letting you run around the woods at night, but single parenting is hard."

"You leave her out of this," Scott said.

"You haven't been as helpful as I'd hoped. Allison isn't as much of an inducement as I'd thought, so now you need to understand the downside of failing me."

Scott hadn't wanted to be helpful the last time Gerard cornered him. He'd told him about Isaac, Erica and Boyd to get away from him.

The sensible part of Scott knew that werewolf business or not, what he should do is go back inside, get his mom, and go to the sheriff and the FBI and tell them Gerard had threatened her. Only, had he? It sounded like a threat coming from him, but would it be enough to get him arrested? What if he got out on bail? Scott's mom would still be in danger from him and Kate and the goons he had with him.

Gerard coughed and discreetly patted at his mouth with a handkerchief.

Scott had to go along and hope the situation changed for the better.

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine," he said sulkily. "Make him trust me. Then what?"

"I will call you and give a location and a time. Make sure he's there," Gerard instructed. "Not so difficult, even for you."

Scott suppressed a growl. It was one thing when Stiles called him a dummy – not that Stiles did, but Scott knew when Stiles was rolling his eyes that he was thinking that – but he was getting really tired of Gerard's insults.

"And to make it a little more enticing for Mr. Hale, you can tell him it is where his two straying betas are."

"What are you talking about?" Scott felt cold despite the morning sun beginning to warm the parking lot.

Gerard's mouth ticked up on one side. "Apparently Mr. Boyd and Ms. Reyes' parents never warned them against hitchhiking."

"You – "

"Don't be tiresome. Go tell Hale you can find out where his betas are. He'll come running."

The thought came to Scott that if he couldn't tell the Sheriff, he could at least warn Derek –

"And, Mr. McCall?" Gerard said. "If you are considering a triple cross, you should know that Mr. Boyd and Ms. Reyes aren't my only students who will be staying with me." He gestured and one of the goons spoke into a phone.

Scott recognized the uneven rattle-roar of Stiles' old jeep as it started up and was driven to stop next to them. He opened his mouth to cover, to tell Stiles to get out of here, only it wasn't Stiles' in the driver's seat. It was one of the men he'd seen watching the Argent house at night. A muffled noise pulled his attention to the back of the Jeep.

Stiles was there. Duct tape wrapped his wrists and ankles and gagged him. His eyes were dilated and, even over the stink of the Jeep's exhaust, he reeked of terror. It didn't stop his wriggling and kicking and cursing behind the tape, but none of that helped.

"Mr. Stilinski will be enjoying Hunter hospitality too."

Stiles glared furiously at Gerard.

Gerard smirked at him, then looked at Scott again. "As I said, awful things can happen to a woman in a dark parking lot. Or a poor high school student just outside the door of his house on a dark morning."

"I said I'd do it."

Stiles kicked and yelled behind his gag, shaking his head at Scott, but Scott looked down at the ground. This was his mom they were threatening and if they could take his best friend, who was the Sheriff’s kid, from right outside his house, there was no way anyone could protect her. He had to do this. He could tell Stiles was yelling _No, no, no_ , and his name but determinedly ignored him.

"I'm glad we've come to such a clear understanding," Gerard said. "Now, go to school, keep your phone on, and wait for my call."

"What happens to Stiles?" Scott asked, though he had a sick feeling in his stomach. Stiles wouldn't be intimidated into keeping quiet. He'd go straight to his dad.

"Oh, I'll release him," Gerard said and Scott didn't need to hear his heart skip a beat to know that was a lie. He told the man driving the Jeep, "Take him to the basement."

He turned away after the Jeep rolled out of the parking lot.

"Better hurry, Mr. McCall, you wouldn't want to be tardy to homeroom."

~~~

Jackson sensed it rising through Lydia before her eyes rolled back and she started to scream. Kira had been at the other end of the hall but came racing to them in time to help catch Lydia along with him as her whole body went stiff. The shriek threatened to break glass again. Or would have if the glass in the windows facing the lacrosse pitch and the gymnasium had been replaced yet. The clear plastic in place shivered instead and flew open in places.

The other students still left in the hall clapped their hands over their ears and fled or fell to the floor.

Jackson caught Lydia's slight weight as she went limp.

Kira met his gaze and he realized he could see something like an aura around her. It flickered like an orange flame in the pupils of her dark eyes.

She was the only one besides him who hadn't been incapacitated by Lydia's scream.

"What are you?" he blurted.

Kira blinked at him. "Something? I don't know, I've only felt different since we came to Beacon Hills," she said. "What are you? Do you know? Because your eyes are shining."

"I don't know if I should tell you, when you won't tell me," he growled at her, but not too seriously. He blinked the shift back, though, and asked, "Better?"

She smiled, "Well, your eyes are blue again. But both ways are pretty."

Lydia moaned against his shoulder.

Teachers were poking their heads out of classrooms and the other kids were crawling to their knees and feet or leaning against lockers. Allison came around a corner, looking fierce and unstoppable, her homeroom teacher whinging behind her.

"We should get her out of here," Allison declared as soon as she was close enough. She gave Kira an odd look, then shrugged. Kira had already seen more than enough to know something weird was going on. Jackson wouldn't have tried to freeze her out even if he hadn't just seen she was not-human too.

"You're right," Jackson said instead and swept Lydia up bridal-style and headed for the doors.

"Has anyone seen Scott or Stiles today?" Allison asked as she opened one of the double doors and Kira got the other so Jackson didn't have to fumble and hit Lydia against anything.

"I haven't," Kira said. "But I drove by the Sheriff's house on the way here and his Jeep was gone."

"And you noticed that?" Jackson asked.

"Well, I was looking because that's where I left it the other day," Kira explained.

Jackson understood and he could see Allison did too. You'd look out of basic curiosity. Odds were Scott was with Stiles, wherever he was. Or maybe not, because Jackson had seen a lot more of Stiles lately and a lot less of his Siamese twin. Scott had been working on usurping Jackson's Biggest Jerk title for a while now.

"Jackson," Lydia mumbled in his ear, "quit fucking around and take me home."

"Do you want me to come?" Allison asked.

"Yes," Lydia said. She turned her head enough to eye Kira. "You can stay out of this." She was getting sharper and more aware, but Jackson could feel her trembling spasmodically.

Kira's eyes lit orange. "I don't think so. Something changed when you screamed before." Tiny sparks flashed between her fingertips.

"Don't let my grandfather or anyone see that," Allison whispered frantically. She looked around. "There are hunters in town."

"I don't know what that means," Kira said.

Jackson headed for the Porsche. Allison caught his shoulder. "Your car is too flashy."

"We'll take yours." He headed for the boringly safe sedan Allison's parents had given her to drive.

"Mine's lojacked and probably bugged by this point," Allison said. "The cops followed me and my dad home yesterday."

"I've got Dad's today," Kira said. She held up a key ring. "After getting stuck with Stiles' Jeep and Mom having to come get me, they decided it would be better if I had the car. I'm supposed to come get dad if mom can't, but that's all."

"Good," Lydia murmured. "No one knows about you."

Kira led them to a minivan. "Where're we going?"

"Lydia's," Jackson said.

"Call Stiles," Lydia said. "And Scott. And Derek." She shuddered violently again and clapped her palm over her mouth. "Someone's going to die."

~~~

Mindy, the civilian secretary who handled Noah's correspondence and paperwork, buzzed him. He frowned at the phone. It was new – like half the equipment and the office he was in now – and he hadn't memorized which buttons did what. He pressed the right one after a second. God knew when they'd get back into the station again; he would have to adapt along with the rest of his department to operating out of the old, swoop-roofed Safeway building that had doubled as the town library until the new one was built. He wasn't a fan of the wall of windows in front, but the location, just a block down from the station, was a boon.

"What is it?"

"You've got a call from the high school, sir."

Noah scrubbed his face. "What has Stiles done now?"

Mindy chuckled. "Stiles is apparently truant today, sir. Unless you kept him home?"

"No."

He hadn't even seen Stiles this morning. He'd sent him home after dropping them at the station and hadn't worried about him after that. Stiles had been at the hospital all night though, worrying about Noah, so he'd probably crashed when he got home and never made it to school.

"No," he said again, "but with what happened yesterday, he's likely home asleep."

"Should I just tell them he's home sick?"

"Yeah, go ahead and do that," Noah said. As soon as he had a free moment, he'd call home and double-check. A twinge of guilt reminded him he had a responsibility to more than his job and his picked up the phone to call his son.

He didn’t worry when Stiles failed to answer his cell. It could be out of charge, turned off, or still in his Jeep. But when no one answered the landline Noah maintained because of the job, he knew something was wrong.

~~~

 

Gerard kicked Stiles one more time, then left him on the floor of the basement. Kate, who had been sitting on the stairs watching avidly, rose to her feet and gave a languid wave. She pulled the string to the overhead light bulb. Her eyes were a battered brass color around the wide stretch of her slit-pupils in the dark that followed.

Stiles coughed and heaved and seriously wondered if he didn't have a piece of rib stabbed through his lung. Blood bubbled in his mouth and he had to swallow it, thanks to the tape still gagging him. New bruises were blooming under his skin, to go with the ones from left behind by being kidnapped, rolling around in the back of his Jeep while some jackass practically stripped its gears, and being tossed down the basement stairs.

"Get up here, Kate," Gerard commanded and she went up the stairs with the assurance of someone who could see in the dark.

Stiles curled up in as close to a fetal ball as he could and worked on not crying. If his nose stuffed up, he wouldn't be able to breathe with the tape gagging him.

When he could hear through the pain in his gut and ribs making him whimper and whine, Stiles realized Erica was talking to him. She was breathless and her voice sounded as wrecked as he felt.

"Stiles, Stiles, Stiles, please, please, can you hear me? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, the hunters got us on the highway south and they've had us chained up since then. We can't get loose, we can't help you, please Stiles, you need to wake up. You've got to get out of here."

Stiles moaned and inched himself around to face where Erica and Boyd were strung up. He couldn't see in the dark, but their eyes were lambent yellow and he was grateful for just that break in the suffocating black basement.

"Oh, God, good, Stiles, did you hear me?" Erica exclaimed.

He tried nodding while wondering if Erica could see him.

"Yes!" Erica said. "Yes."

Stiles let his head slump sideways onto the floor. He hurt so much. His body and his soul. He'd swear his soul ached from knowing Scott was going to just leave him in Gerard's hands. Part of him understood; he’d sacrifice Scott for his dad – it would kill him inside, but he would – but what he couldn’t accept was he knew Scott was factoring Allison into it. Scott didn’t want to go to the police, even when Stiles was right there and his mom was being threatened, because Gerard was an Argent. He knew how Scott rationalized. Stiles was his best friend, he'd do almost anything for Scott – excepting murder and rape and child porn – but Scott couldn't even call the cops when he knew Stiles was kidnapped. It hurt so much Stiles wondered how he was still breathing through that betrayal.

He didn't know if Erica had run out things to say or breath to say them or maybe he'd passed out for a while. Eventually, he noticed a buzzing that wasn't the result of head trauma. Electricity zapping the werewolves so they couldn't tear themselves free. He held himself still and tried to think about that.

Electricity.

They could break the chains and get out of here if it weren't for the electricity.

If the electricity went out –

Stiles blinked at the darkness and realized he'd closed his eyes. Or passed out. His back ached where Gerard had kicked him. He'd probably be pissing blood if he lived to get out here.

The electricity wasn't going to just go out randomly. Erica would know that. Her father worked for PG&E. They were very good about fixing outages fast, even way out in the boonies. When they weren't starting mega-fires with downed lines, at least. Of course, it really traced back to climate change. The whole world turning tinder dry, while the current Nero fiddled with himself in the White House.

And, yes, Stiles did know that the real Nero hadn't played a violin to the tune of a Roman conflagration.

He had a concussion. His mind kept wandering, and why not? He'd like to wander out of here too.

Electricity, he reminded himself. Was there a breaker box down here? He couldn't spot one in the dark.

How ironic. The lights were off, yet he still needed to turn everything off. He didn't like irony anymore.

The electricity didn't need to be off, Stiles thought blearily, the werewolves just needed it to stop zapping them. They needed to be unplugged. He sniggered in his head. MTV's Werewolves Unplugged. Did lycanthropes prefer acoustic music to amped? He bet they did, with their super ears. Ugh, definite concussion.

"Stiles?" Erica whispered.

He made a mumbling sound behind his gag in response.

"Stiles, there a table two feet in front of you. I know you can't see, but I can, and there's stuff on there. Tongs and kni—knives and you can cut the tape with something."

He was more likely to slice open one of his arteries or chop off a finger.

It made him want to scream, but he rolled himself so that he was on his knees and one shoulder, head still on the floor. Both his shoulders protested how his arms were pulled behind his back, but that was a pale runner up to the agony in his torso as he began inchworming his way forward, pushing with his toes and knees.

"Stiles!" Erica called. "Stiles, you're going the wrong way!"

He still hadn't heard anything from Boyd. Oh God, why hadn't Boyd said anything? Boyd was always quiet, but not utterly silent. Stiles hoped Boyd was gagged too.

His ribs felt like white-hot icepicks were pincushioning him. Stiles prayed he wouldn't puke from it. He'd end up aspirating the vomit if he did and he didn't want to die like that.

"Stiles, go the other way!" Erica whisper-yelled.

There was no one to hear except Boyd and Erica, so Stiles let himself scream against the tape. It didn't help, but it was easier than trying not to. He wished there was someone to hear – someone who wasn't a sadistic psychopath and his killer lizard daughter. He didn't know if they were gone or just upstairs. Erica and Boyd might be able to hear, but he couldn't ask them.

He inched forward stubbornly. He had a plan. It involved bumping his head against the wall. He stopped there for a while, just breathing in and out, until he could find the conviction to straighten up. It made his kneecaps hurt, but eventually he was face first from head to knees against the wall.

He'd only seen the basement in blinks and flashes as Gerard beat the shit out of him. The glare of the unshielded light bulb had half blinded him. But there had been the stairs against one wall, the table of torture tools in the center, Erica and Boyd chained up along the wall at a right angle to the stair wall, shelving along the wall opposite them, and the wall outlet in the wall parallel to the stairs. After Gerard quit kicking him, he'd had a direct line of sight from where he was lying to the thick cord snaking along the floor to the outlet.

Stiles turned his head enough to see, trying to locate Erica and Boyd's beautiful, shining gold eyes. He'd seen Boyd's eyes before, hadn't he? That meant Boyd was still alive.

He made an interrogative noise in his throat.

"Look the other way, Stiles," Erica said.

He cranked his head from his right to his left. Oh. There they were. And that meant he'd crawled in the right direction! No circling the room on his knees.

He worm-crawled his way along the wall toward Erica and Boyd, keeping tight to the wall, waiting and hoping to feel the electrical cord under his knees or the plug against his side.

It felt like he'd covered miles. Stiles stifled a sob. Please don't let it be at the other end of his wall.

"Stiles."

Boyd's exhausted voice made him squeak.

"Stiles, you've almost got it. Another four inches."

"What – ?" Erica mumbled, then, "Oooh. It's right there, Stiles."

He made another muffled pain noise, but the relief of hearing Boyd, of hearing he hadn't been killing himself going the wrong way, was beautiful. It didn't muffle the pain, but it pushed him through it as he humped himself sideways again. Everything throbbed to the rhythm of his heartbeat and that thundered too fast, almost deafening in his ears.

But he found it! His knee slid painfully over the thick extension cord. It was the heavy, round sort meant for big appliances or construction tools or other things that that take 220v instead 110v. He remembered being fascinated as a little kid by the different sort of plug the dryer took. Blades instead of prongs and it had a twist that locked and kept it from being dragged out of the special outlet accidentally.

His heart skipped a beat as he thought that. What if he couldn't just jerk it out? Could he turn around and get his tapped together hands on it and twist enough to get it out? He hurt just imagining the effort.

For now, the cord rested between his knees. Stiles jiggled and twisted to work it higher, between his thighs. If his legs were free, he'd get the cord over his ankles to give himself some leverage.

Instead, he clamped his legs together tight on the cord, so tight it hurt, and jerked with his thighs as he let himself fall on his side. He screamed again as his shoulder hit the floor, but the cord wiggled, resisted, and then pulled out of the outlet.

"Yes!" Erica yelled.

The buzz of the fence charger electrifying Boyd and Erica stopped. Stiles let himself cry.

The screech of warping, tearing metal snapped him back to clearer consciousness. Werewolf warm hands were on him, startling in the dark, and he thrashed, startled and helpless.

"It's me, Batman," Erica whispered. She drew him up into a sitting position, cradled to her like a baby.

"Hold on," Boyd said. "I'm going to cut through the tape so we can get it off faster."

Stiles almost nodded, then froze, feeling a razor-sharp claw sliding between the skin of his cheek and the tape. The tape gave away and Boyd caught one end and peeled it away from Stile's mouth. It stung, especially where it had cut into the corners of his mouth and glued to his lips and tongue. As soon as it was gone, he sucked in desperate, deep breaths though, despite the protests from his ribs.

"Going to get your wrists next," Body said. His hands settled on Stiles' shoulders, then followed his arms down to the tape holding his wrists together behind him. "Hold still."

Boyd sliced through the tape again. Stiles' shoulders sang with relief and cramps as his arms were freed. It hurt to move them forward, but it helped at the same time. His mouth was sticky and dry as he said, "Thanks."

"You got us free," Boyd said.

"All part of the service," Stiles croaked. He sounded like he supported Phillip Morris all by himself. His throat hurt. Erica was still supporting him. Her hair tickled against his cheek. It didn't smell good, but then neither did he.

"Ankles," Boyd said.

"Okay. You know I still can't see anything."

Boyd clawed off the last of the tape.

"We're going to get out here," Erica promised.

Stiles nodded. He heard Boyd stand up and then the overhead light coming on. He blinked and his eyes watered some more, wetness smearing dirt down his face into the sticky bits of glue left by the tape.

It seemed shitty that Boyd already looked fully recovered while Stiles hurt so much that he didn't think he could stand up.

He licked his lips and asked, "Can you hear if they're still here?"

"They left," Boyd said.

"Oh, thank God."

Fuck thanking God, Stiles thought a breath later, as he struggled his way to his feet. Erica hovered beside him and he'd resent it if she wasn't whimpering under her breath. Erica knew how much it sucked to have to accept physical help. He knew she wouldn't look down on him for needing it. And he didn't want to fall. His bruises already had bruises.

Stiles staggered across the room to the Table of Torture Tools.

"I've got to call Scott, I've got stop him," he said. He slapped his hands through the things on the table until he found his cell phone. Please have a charge, he told it.

He touched the contact for Scotty McScott Scott.

Stiles listened to it ring until it went to voice mail. Because Scott never fucking answered his phone unless it was Allison calling. He never answered his texts or messages half the time either. He resisted the urge to whip the phone across the room and let it break against a wall. Erica might gut him for that.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked Erica or Boyd. Either could answer. It would be helpful. He could tell his dad where they were.

"A farm. Way out on the edge of town," Erica said.

Boyd inhaled deeply. "Derek was here. I can smell that. Old blood."

Oh. Oh. Stiles stared at the broken gate that was still wired up, though unplugged now. This was Kate's dungeon of werewolf despair. This was where she'd had Derek and all those horrible things on the table were things that she had used to torture him. Out front was where he'd shot Peter and thought he was going to die until Derek killed his uncle to finally stop him.

"I know where we are," he said.

"Whoop di doo," Erica said flatly.

Boyd went up the stairs and tried the door. It didn't open and when he pushed on it nothing happened. Boyd kept trying to force it, and werewolf strength should have let him tear the door off its hinges. Since that wasn't happening, Stiles had a good idea of why: Kate or Gerard had blocked or locked it somehow with Mountain Ash.

He tapped in the number for his dad's personal cell and waited for him to answer. He didn't. Stiles tried again, while his stomach sank. Again, no answer. The third time he got a pre-recorded message that the number he was calling was unavailable. His dad must have busted his phone last night.

Shit.

Stiles tried one more time anyway. No dice. Then he tried his dad's office landline. The call was cut off before he could leave a message. A second effort got him another message that all lines were busy and he should call back or use 911 if he had an emergency.

He scrolled through and found Derek's number only to get another 'not in service' message. Dead or turned off or given the last few days, Derek's phone might even be destroyed. Not getting through to him didn't even hurt Stiles' feelings. Scott hurt his feelings. His dad…

Desperately, Stiles tried his dad's number again, but the phone cut out. He tried again and nothing. The screen went dark and he realized the phone was dead.

Dully, he said, "My phone's dead." His dad wouldn't answer him.

"Ours are gone," Erica said. She crowded closer to Stiles from behind and wrapped her arms around him, leaning her face into his shoulder. It was uncomfortable, but it felt good too, like at least they had each other.

Boyd clomped down the stairs and joined them. He took the phone out of Stiles' hand, set it down gently, then took his hand back. Stiles' pain eased off. His mouth fell open. "Are you doing that?"

Boyd nodded.

"Derek showed us," Erica said.

"It doesn't heal you," Boyd added.

"I'm fine with just not hurting so much."

The relief from the pain cleared his thoughts a little.

"We have to get out of here on our own, I guess," he said. He began looking around. Maybe he could repurpose the horrible things Kate had on the table.

"I couldn't force the door," Boyd said. He sounded puzzled. "I feel like I have my strength back. Erica?"

"Me too." She nuzzled Stiles' shoulder blade. "Thank you, Stiles."

"Yeah, well, I needed you guys' claws."

Boyd snorted softly.

Stiles looked up the stairs to the locked door and began to laugh. The door opened inward.

"What?" Erica demanded.

"The hinges are on this side."

Boyd smiled. "I can knock the pins out, but I can't push it against Mountain Ash."

"No problem," Stiles said. "Squishy, fragile humans can handle rowan and wolfsbane."

"Squishy, brilliant humans," Erica corrected him.

Boyd picked up a rusty claw hammer and screwdriver. The tip of the screwdriver had the same flakey red rust – Stiles gagged. That wasn't rust on the screwdriver or the hammer.

"All right, let's get out of here," Erica said. "If we can't find a phone or a car, Boyd and I can carry you."

Stiles would have protested, but she was already half carrying him up the stair behind Boyd.

~~~

 

Derek groaned as his phone rang. He'd stretched out on the king-sized guest room bed at Lydia's house despite how weird it felt to be in the empty house and dropped off to sleep. Isaac sprawled next to him on the big bed. Neither of them felt like sleeping separately. A bleary look at the face of his phone showed him it had only been a few hours. He stared at the notification blankly at first.

He had a call from Scott.

Since when did Scott call him? He didn't even know if he'd ever given Scott his phone number. Though, Stiles might have done that. He was sure Stiles had obtained it from the police file for himself. What Stiles had Scott had. Or so it had always seemed. Derek didn’t know if it still held true.

He sat up, letting the phone keep shrilling, and rubbed at his crusty eyes with the heel of his hand.

Isaac slapped blindly toward Derek. "Noooo," he grumbled and rolled enough to bury his face in a pillow.

Derek finally accepted to call. "What?"

"Derek?"

Some imp of the perverse made Derek reply, "Wrong number."

Scott went silent, then asked, "Derek?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I – That was shitty. Okay, but – Erica and Boyd. Like, I think I can find out where they are."

"Why would you care?" Derek replied. "Why would I care? They left my pack. They aren't my problem anymore." He spoke automatically and nothing he said was technically a lie, but he doubted Scott could have picked out one if they'd been in the same room. Why was Scott suddenly interested in sharing information with him? Scott didn't care about Erica or Boyd, he'd made that clear more than once, since they'd chosen the Bite. He sure as hell didn't care about Derek's concerns.

For that matter, why would Scott think Derek was looking for the two betas? He had no reason to know they'd left.

He frowned at his phone like it was Scott himself.

"Look, just, if I find where they are, you'll come, right? You'll come get them?"

"Scott, they're not my belongings. They left. I can't just drag them back," Derek explained.

"But they're – they're, um, they're trapped," Scott blurted.

"How do you know?"

"Because I – because – look, Derek, you've got to come!"

"Why?" Derek asked silkily.

"Because Gerard's going to kill my mom and Stiles if I can't get you there," Scott answered miserably. "Look, I'm sorry, he's been after me to tell him stuff all along, so I tried to stay away and make sure you didn't tell me stuff. I acted as shitty as I could, you know? To make sure none of you would trust me."

"You did a good job," Derek told him. In fact, it wasn't a bad ploy, no doubt because Scott didn't have to do much acting.

"I just, Gerard's sick, cancer I think, and if everything just went on long enough, I figured he'd die. Only then there's this kanima and a bunch more people dying – "

"I know."

Softly, sounding like the scared kid he was under the werewolf strength and stupid bravado, Scott said, "He showed up at the hospital this morning. He threatened my mom if I didn't get you where he wanted the next time he calls."

"And you believe him." Derek had no doubt Gerard would follow through on the threat. He'd ordered the kanima into the police station to try to take him and sent his men in after it to kill the police officers who were paralyzed and helpless. He didn't care about who was human or innocent, any more than Kate did.

"Derek, after he threatened my mom, one of his hunters drove up in Stiles' Jeep. Stiles was tied up in the back. Gerard said he was taking him away and going to keep him with Erica and Boyd."

Damn it. Derek hated the way his heart thumped harder. He was scared for his betas – they’d always be his in his mind – and Stiles. Thinking of them in Kate’s hands made him sick.

He made himself draw back from his emotions. He stuffed the fear down next to his anger. Anger was his anchor, but it didn’t help him think. Neither did the fear. He needed to be smarter.

Stiles was probably still alive. Gerard must be worried the FBI and state investigators and the sheriff's department would uncover something that could tie him to the massacre. He needed Stiles' as a hostage. Not everyone who helped hunters did it because they wanted to. Erica and Boyd might be for a little while longer, but only if Gerard thought they could be useful, and if Kate hadn’t completely lost it.

"You know he's going to kill them once he has what he wants," Derek told him. Scott, too. He kept his voice flat, didn’t give away the sick worry that wanted to send him into a panic. He was the adult; he had to act calm.

"But why?" Scott asked.

Derek squeezed his eyes shut and told himself Scott was not whining. He was baffled. He didn’t understand what ugliness lived in Gerard Argent’s mockery of a soul. Scott was a brat, but he had every right to be scared and confused under the circumstances. He hadn’t grown up in Derek’s world – and Derek had and been just as naïve when he was Scott’s age – so he’d never had to think of such things before. He couldn’t just yell at Scott for not getting it.

"Because he likes killing."

"But – but he does it because werewolves kill people."

"Is Stiles a werewolf?" Derek asked. "Is your mother?"

Scott just breathed loudly into the phone.

"Will you come?"

It was a trap, but someone had to stop the kanima killings. Derek had to hope coming in knowing it was a trap would even the odds.

"Yes, I'll come," Derek said.

Scott ended the call. Derek sat at the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. It was a soft sort of apple green. The guest room had French doors that opened onto a balcony. White lawn curtains diffused the light.

Isaac sat up, Indian-style, on the bed. It ruffled the duvet, but otherwise there wasn't much sign they'd been there.

"I'm coming with you," Isaac said.

"You shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because Gerard's probably going to kill me." They needed to go. He needed to go by the bank and make arrangements. Cash and the keys to the apartment in New York and the name of a contact with the pack who held the territory where he and Laura had lived. He'd give Isaac the Camaro's keys too.

Jackson's parents had plenty of money. They could help him get out of Beacon Hills. Derek would make sure Isaac had a chance to run.

He could put together what was going on now, from what Scott had said. If Gerard succeeded, the alpha power wouldn't go to any of his betas or Scott either. It would be wrested from him, the way he'd taken it from Peter.

"We can beat him," Isaac said. Which meant _I'm coming anyway._ Derek might have hugged him if they both didn't shy away from emotional displays. Besides, it would encourage Isaac. It wasn't like the kid knew how to fight, never mind go up against skilled adult hunters.

"We couldn't even beat the kanima." Derek sighed. "If it goes wrong, you'll know it. You'll need to run."

"What about you?" Isaac asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "it wasn't supposed to be like this. I didn't know about Gerard. I should have run before I tried to make a pack. "

"We could still run," Isaac suggested tentatively.

"If this goes bad, you're going to," Derek told him. "But I have to try for Erica and Boyd."

"Even though they ran out on us?" The pain of being left behind by them sounded clear in his voice as much as the pain of them leaving.

"I bit them," Derek said simply. He was responsible, he would always be. "Gerard has Stiles as well. He's threatened people who never chose this." He got up. "Come on, there's things I need to do before Scott calls again."

~~~

 

Lydia had been curled up against Jackson, silent and half drowsing in the back seat, as Kira steered them to the Martin house. She snapped awake as the hollow protest opened inside her again. She jerked straight up and barely clamped her hands over her mouth as the scream tried to tear its way out.

Jackson's hands steadied her, while Allison turned in her seat. "What is it?" she asked urgently.

Lydia swallowed back the scream as tears flooded down her face.

"Isaac and Derek," she whispered. "They're going to die."

~~~

 

Hotch walked into the conference room, snapping everyone's attention to him. He held up a folder. "Search warrants for the Argent house, Kate Argent's rental and any attached buildings, any vehicle they own, lease or rent."

"What the hell took so long?" Morgan demanded. They should have had those warrants signed and in their hands a day ago, considering this case tied in to a massacre and possible domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

Hotch was stone-faced. "Several judges were unavailable. These warrants were signed by Federal Superior Court Judge Eileen Moroney."

"Seriously?" Morgan asked softly. "Someone really tried to block the warrants?" How far and how deep did the corruption go? Was it simply corruption or, more frighteningly, belief?

"It gives us other links to investigate," Hotch said just as quietly.

"Okay. That's for later."

The rest of the team, except Garcia, were on their feet, gathering up jackets.

"I want everyone wearing a vest," Hotch ordered. "These suspects have access to automatic weapons, armor-piercing rounds, and they've demonstrated their willingness to kill law enforcement."

Kevlar wasn’t proof against everything and neither were ceramic armor inserts, but both improved the odds. Hotch wanted everyone as safe as possible, even knowing ‘safe’ wasn’t a real possibility. Morgan didn’t like the vest, but he’d wear one too.

It was all-hands-on-deck with the exception of Rossi. Still in the hospital thanks to a possible infection, he was not happy to be sidelined. They would have a contingent of hard-eyed, angry deputies in his place. The local contingent was still smarting over the blown surveillance that lost Kate and Gerard.

"Where to first?" Prentiss asked. She was pulling her hair back in a tight, no-nonsense ponytail the way she always did given any warning they were going into danger. Since JJ started going into the field more actively, she'd begun emulating Prentiss and Morgan wanted to smile when he saw Prentiss hand her a hair tie.

"Kate Argent's rental. Chris Argent put his father out. It's highly likely Gerard is with her. They may both be there, so we go in extra carefully."

~~~

 

Boyd worked the pin out of the top door hinge, then the bottom and moved to the side so Stiles could lean against it and use his weight to slowly push the interlocking lugs of the two leaves of the hinges out of alignment. Stiles crossed his fingers and hoped Kate didn't have a simple rowan wood bar across the door. Wait, the door opened inward. No bar. Hurray.

The door scraped and dropped as it came off the hinges. Stiles tentatively pushed it. The knob and lock assembly squealed as the door fell away from him, torqueing on the lock tongue. That would likely never work right again.

Like Stiles cared.

He scuffed forward and broke the line of ash on the floor with a triumphant, "Hah!" only to freeze up at the click of a safety disengaging.

Stiles lifted his head, knowing he would be staring into the muzzle of a gun, and found himself facing Chris Argent.

"What the fuck?" he complained to Boyd. "You said they left! Does rowan screw up your werewolf hearing too?"

"They did leave," Boyd said.

"Stiles?" Chris exclaimed. He took in Boyd and Erica behind Stiles but lifted the muzzle of the gun enough Stiles didn't think he was about to shot. "What the hell are you doing – My father."

"And his goons. Hey, is my Jeep here? Because one of them totally carjacked me while kidnapping me," Stiles confirmed.

"I didn't see it," Chris said.

  
"Why are you here, if you aren't with Evil Fuck One or Evil Fuck Two?" Stiles demanded.

"I'm looking for them," Chris said. He didn't bother correcting Stiles, no doubt because Gerard and Kate _were_ evil fucks and even he couldn't deny it.

"Well, they've gone off to ambush Derek somewhere with my backstabbing ex-best friend's help, but they promised when they were done fucking Derek over, they'd come back and kill us." Stiles was still angry with Scott, because believing Gerard was going to get Derek and Scott killed. And then a lot more people. Which would inevitably involve Stiles’ dad, putting him in danger, and that was not acceptable. In the way fear and anger distorted both thinking and memory, everything happening had become Scott’s fault to him.

"Have you got a phone?" Erica asked. In the better light of the kitchen, Stiles could see blood dried in her tangled hair and horrifyingly, down the insides of her legs. Her top was torn and exposed more than he was comfortable seeing too.

"Yes."

"I'm calling Derek," she said and held out her hand demandingly. All her bright red painted nails were broken off. She snapped her fingers. Surprisingly, Chris holstered his gun and handed over his phone.

Boyd detoured around Chris to reach the kitchen sink. He turned on the water and began sluicing off his face and head.

Stiles concentrated on not breathing too deep or coughing.

He propped himself against the wall and looked around. The destruction from the fight with Peter had all been repaired. The refrigerator and stove looked new, the windows had new glass, and the walls were patched. All it lacked was paint.

Erica was swaying from foot to foot – her shoes were gone. Her toenails were the same bright red her nails had been painted. Without her towering heels, she seemed so much smaller and vulnerable. She glared at Chris' phone.

"He's not going to answer a call from an Argent," Stiles told her wearily. Did Derek know the Argents’ phone numbers? Everything was too confused. Stiles had Allison’s number. He wasn’t sure he hadn’t shared it with Derek. Not that that would make any difference, since Chris must have a different one. Caller ID? Did that work with cells? Stiles couldn’t remember. Derek probably wouldn’t answer a call from Caller Unknown, though.

“He’s not going to answer,” he added as he remembered Derek had changed phones along with passing out burners to Isaac, Lydia, Jackson and himself. He would have remembered that when he tried to call Derek before if his head didn’t feel ready to fall off his neck.

He tongued a wobbly tooth and grimaced at the blood still welling in his mouth. Screw manners. He hawked the blood onto the floor. It was Crazy Kate's floor anyway.

"What happened to you?" Chris asked him.

"Seriously?" Stiles replied. "I tell you Evil Old Fuck had me fucking kidnapped and locked down in a fucking dungeon, and you're asking me what happened to me?" He pointed at the tape still clinging to his pant cuffs and the raw marks and glue on his wrists. "Your father pushed me down the stairs and kicked me half unconscious and that's going to only be a warm-up to what he and his thugs did to Boyd and Erica. Screw you, you hypocritical asshole."

Erica made a noise of furious frustration.

"Call Jackson," Stiles told her. "Derek will answer a call from him."

Chris was still looking at him like Stiles had two heads.

"You need to get out of here," he said.

"No shit," Stiles replied tiredly.

~~~

 

Two cruisers with deputies followed the FBI out to the rented farmhouse next to the Preserve border. Emily rode shotgun next to Hotch. Reid had the back seat. JJ had chosen to ride with Morgan in the second SUV. Given the violence that had already exploded in the tiny town, they were all suited up for a hard entry: windbreakers, comms in their ears, protective shooter's glasses, mics clipped to the straps of the ballistic vests, badges hanging on lanyards. Extra clips.

The GPS showed their route and destination, but Emily watched the road for the right turn off. She spotted the mailbox before the GPS notified them of the upcoming turn. "There," she said. GPS couldn't tell them the rutted driveway needed grading and gravel or that it showed a lot of fresh wear and tear. Dust and stones fanned out onto the highway from a truck or SUV tearing out of there recently.

There were no vehicles parked when they reached the house. One of the deputies took a slow loop around the barn and outbuildings, then drew up to park before the house, cruiser skewed provide quick cover if necessary.

Emily followed Hotch. She kept one hand resting on the butt of her sidearm at her hip. They didn't have any obvious reasons to expect shooting, but the station attack had her more cautious than normal. One of the deputies stood next to the open door of his cruiser. He had a shotgun waiting on the seat as he scanned the windows facing them.

Emily kept herself posed to cover Hotch's back. Morgan, JJ and Reid would be watching the flanks. She noticed the porch had recently been rebuilt – the timber was unsealed, all pale and raw. She even caught a whiff of pine from it. Or maybe that was cedar. Morgan was the construction guy – he'd know. The windows had been replaced too – the glass still had stickers on it.

New door.

Hotch raised his hand to knock and Emily caught his wrist and pointed to the wall where the old siding had been left alone. Bullet holes pockmarked it in several places. Fresh splinters edged them. Someone hadn't gotten to fixing that.

She let go and Hotch knocked. "Katherine Argent," he called. "This is Agent Hotchner of the FBI. We have a warrant to search the premises."

Emily listened for any movement inside, anything that would give away an armed response.

Hotch knocked again and repeated himself.

He dropped his hand down to the doorknob. It turned under his touch, unlocked. Emily drew her weapon. Hotch met her eyes. She dipped her head. One, two, three. Hotch opened the door.

It was a kitchen. Emily followed Hotch in. He had his own weapon in hand, the folded warrant stuffed in the straps of his vest. They cleared the single floor with Morgan, Reid and JJ slipping inside behind them. Doors were opened completely so that no one could be behind them.

Closets were opened and probed, the space under a bed, under a table with a floor length cloth, behind long curtains. The low attic was swept with high-powered flashlights. There were gun cases in the living room. More in the bedroom that appeared to belong to Katherine Argent, along with boxes of ammunition. A second bedroom appeared to be occupied by Gerard – clothes hung in the closet and a dop kit sat on the dresser along with an old-fashioned traveler's clock. A heavy crossbow leaned against the wall next to the bed. More of the black soot lined the windowsills and the door sill. It was ground into the rugs.

Emily was reminded of the terrorist hideouts they'd raided occasionally. There was nothing of a home in the house that hadn't been there before Katherine Argent rented it.

They circled back to the kitchen. Much of the house looked like it hadn't been changed for decades, but the kitchen had new appliances, a new sink and faucet, a new kitchen table and chairs.

Reid looked at the linoleum floor. "Scuffs," he said. "No one's mopped."

Emily looked. It did look like people had tracked in and out without care, but it could have been them – she narrowed her eyes. That black soot had been tracked across the floor. It lay thick under a heavy, empty china hutch.

At the sink, Morgan said, "This towel's still damp."

Reid followed Emily's eyeline to the hutch. He frowned, looked at the furniture and said, "That's been moved. Recently." He walked over to a bare wall and pointed to the impressions in the linoleum where the hutch had sat previously.

"Morgan," Hotch said. "Help me move it."

It took them both and they left gouges in the linoleum. Whoever moved it before had been stronger than normal. Moving it revealed another door, off its hinges, and more of the black soot. The stuff was everywhere in this case.

Reid knelt and fingered the soot. "This looks like what the pictures from the Hale fire showed. We should make sure forensics take a sample of it."

Morgan examined the door and hinges. "This was taken off recently, probably today."

Reid remained crouching. "I've got what looks like bloody saliva here." Emily went to the door and asked one of the deputies to come inside with an evidence marker and a camera to record it.

"Ready to head down, kid?" Morgan asked.

The doorway opened into a basement, but there was no light switch. Light from the kitchen showed the first few steps down and otherwise there was only darkness.

"I"ll go get a flashlight from one of the deputies," JJ offered. They waited. Emily kept an eye on the doorway, just in case someone was hiding down there – it wouldn't do to assume the door blocked by the china hutch was the only entrance or exit. That kind of assumption got you killed. Reid poked through the kitchen cabinets methodically.

Morgan checked the fridge. "She's no cook," was his only comment on its contents. He pulled a .22 pistol out. "Eggs, beer, cheesecake, steak and lead."

Reid picked up an oven mitt and frowned at the weight. He slipped his hand inside and withdrew a derringer.

Hotch walked over to the table, sat down where he could see the doors and slid his hand under the tabletop. The crisp sound of Velcro unzipping followed. He brought out a sawed-off shotgun and placed it on the table.

"Think she has a zipgun in with her toothbrush?" Emily asked.

Morgan glanced at her, then popped out the .22's clip. He caught it and thumbed a cartridge out. The brass glinted gold as he held it up to the light. "Fleur-de-lis," he said.

Reid ambled over. "Same etching as the one we found in Stiles' room," he confirmed. "Very close to the one shone in the vandalized book."

JJ came in with a heavy, four-cell Maglite. She said, "Fleur-de-lis? The luggage in the bedroom is handmade. The pieces all have that impressed on them."

Hotch said, "Morgan, you've got the flashlight. I'll go first, Prentiss behind me."

"Hotch – "

"You're taller," Hotch told Morgan. "You can aim the light over Prentiss' shoulder. You're also wounded. If you don't like my orders, you can stay up here and Reid can handle the light."

Morgan shut his mouth with an audible click. JJ silently handed over the flashlight. He switched it on and the three of them descended the basement stairs.

Morgan aimed the light into each corner for them. "Clear," Emily said.

"Clear," Hotch confirmed. He holstered his weapon and walked forward to switch on the over-head light.

Emily blinked at the light, then grimaced as she took in the basement. The electric fencer charger, cord still stretched toward the wall outlet. The bloody chains hanging from a metal-pipe gate and the still sticky pools of blood pooled beneath it in two places. The things on the table, some bright metal and new, others dark and rusted. The duffel bag and backpack on the floor by one wall, the lost shoe lying under the table, the wallet and spilled purse next to a cattle prod. The smell, the smell she could only call terror and could never describe to anyone who hadn't descended into a pit like this.

She checked the safety on her weapon and holstered. Reid and JJ made their way down the stairs and joined them.

Hotch turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. Morgan walked over to a garbage pail and looked in it. Reid blinked slowly, standing in the center of the room.

JJ walked over to the table. She slipped on a pair of gloves and picked up the red leather woman's wallet, opening it to find an ID.

"Erica Reyes," she read. "Blonde, blue, DOB 1995." She opened the money keeper portion of the wallet. "Two hundred three dollars and an AmEx gift card." She looked through the random purse detritus, lipstick, nail clipper, key ring, comb, compact, then lifted out a bright silver bracelet chain. "Medical alert. She has epilepsy."

Emily snapped on her own gloves and started through the other wallet. It had the well-worn curve of an ass, so she would bet it belonged to a man. When she opened it, she found a solemn-faced young man in the ID photo, dark skin, dark eyes. Same DOB, 1995. There were pictures of an older woman, white hair and a family resemblance. A little girl with the same mouth and nose, her hair in pigtails and pink ribbons. One that showed a scrawny boy, the girl as a toddler, and two adults. The little girl's picture had been taken out and thumbed over often, the edges were worn to a soft fuzz.

"Vernon Boyd III," she read off. He had a student ID for Beacon Hill High School.

The last two names from Stiles Stilinski's amateur murder board.

Morgan made a choked noise, full of disbelief and rage. He lifted something from the garbage pail. The shitty light made Emily think it was an oil-spotted rag at first, but Morgan shifted, and she saw it more clearly. A leopard-spotted thong, torn in two on one side.

"Everybody upstairs. We call in CSU and have them process everything down here. And we search all the outbuildings."

Emily had half worried they'd find Isaac Lahey or Derek Hale in the basement. Now they had two more missing.

~~~

 

They were still going through the house when a white-faced deputy came inside. "You'd better come see this," the kid said in a shaking voice.

JJ went with Hotch. Reid and Emily were in the first bedroom, going through Kate Argent's belongings in the hope they'd find something to show where she was now. The torture chamber in the basement, along with the belongings of two missing teenagers, was enough to arrest her on suspicion of kidnapping and assault and possible murder. The BOLO on her and her father had been upgraded to an APB.

The deputy led them to the old barn. There were holes in the roof and gaps between the boards making up the walls. Pigeons cooed and fluttered in the rafters. The floor was littered with moldy stray feathers and bird shit. The light came through the gaps and openings so bright in the unlit space it seemed almost solid.

The hayloft was empty except for birds. A rusty chain hung from a pulley bolted to the edge of the loft.

Half of a body hung suspended from it.

The chain was wrapped around her wrists, with a loop around her neck. She'd had dirty blond hair.

The lower half of her body lay beneath her on a rubberized tarp.

No attempt had been made to conceal this victim.

"Gomez already radioed for more people to secure the scene and more techs," the baby deputy said. He'd stopped short of where he'd have to look at the body. "No one's come any closer than you."

It wasn't like they needed to check for life.

"Thank you, deputy," Hotch said, courteous as always. "If you could keep the door secure, that would be helpful too."

"Yes sir."

JJ knew Hotch had given the deputy a job to do that let him escape the horrific scene as a kindness. Gideon had always seen and understood more than any of them, but Hotch was the one who thought to be kind.

She returned her attention the victim. There were flies and decomposition had started, but cold November temperatures and the openings in the barn kept the smell from being too bad.

"Reyes?" JJ wondered. This victim was blond. The body looked no more than two days old. Angrily, she guessed the woman had died the night before, while the sleepy deputy kept watch on an empty hotel room. Even without a warrant, they should have put someone on this place. They might have saved this woman if they had.

Hotch squinted at the body. "I don't think so." He gestured to the half of her body on the tarp. "She has both shoes on."

They were high-topped running shoes. Dark blue where they weren't soaked brown with dried blood.

"Another victim," JJ said to herself.

"This isn't Kate's work," Hotch stated. "This is Gerard. He's kept Kate under control, maybe since she was a child, but he can't reign in his own sadistic desires any longer. He either believes he can shift blame for his part of the crimes to his daughter or he no longer cares if he's identified."

"Does he want to be caught?" JJ asked.

Hotch looked at the body again and shook his. "He doesn't believe he can be. He's no longer rational."

~~~

 

Noah was cracking apart. He kept imagining Claudia. What she would say. She’d say he’d failed her. He’d failed his son. He’d let someone _take_ Stiles. What kind of father was he? The kind who was going to have to identify his dead son at the morgue? The kind who didn’t know what he had until it was gone? Until _Stiles_ was gone? There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to ward off the pain he’d feel if he lost his son too. If it was his fault, because he’d been such a shitty, selfish prick of a father. He knew damn well abuse took more forms than just hitting a kid. He’d had no control over what happened to Claudia, anymore than she had, it had been a disease. Not being there for his son, though, that was all on him.

He wiped at his eyes, not even trying to hide it, and his hands were shaking.

Mendoza held up a backpack. “Found it in the basement, sir.”

Noah nodded. "It's Stiles'," he confirmed. The Batman keyring attached to zip and the bleach stain that looked like Oklahoma on the side were unmistakable.

He kept thinking of the series of calls he'd made, trying to track Stiles down earlier in the day. Christ, he'd known Stiles hadn't made it to school; they'd called. He covered his eyes again. He should have put out an alert. An APB on Stiles’ Jeep. Started a damned search. Something. But he hadn't wanted to deal with whatever Stiles had come up with on top of the chaos following the attack on the station.

Despite everything, he hadn’t believed Stiles could be in danger. He was an unforgivable fool.

He'd always privileged doing his job over his son. Maybe it hadn't been as obvious or damaging while Claudia was able to devote herself to Stiles, but it had been true then too.

The blonde FBI agent gave him a sad look. Jareau. Christ, he could tell the name of everyone on the FBI team, but aside from Scott, he didn't know who his son's friends were, if he had any others. Scott and the girl Stiles had a crush on for so long. Lydia. The Whittemore boy was Stiles nemesis or he had been. Were the Reyes and Boyd kids Stiles' friends? Noah hadn't paid any attention in too long.

And now he didn't know if his son was even alive. Luminal was lighting up so much blood in that basement it terrified him, though typing and identification wouldn't be back for days, even with the FBI's lab doing the PCR tests as fast as possible.

What the hell could he do? How could he function? How could he live if Stiles was dead?

Noah squeezed his eyes shut. If Stiles was dead, there would be no reason not to put his gun to his head and end it. It wasn’t a thought he’d ever let himself entertain after losing Claudia, not even for an instant. Sometimes he’d needed the whiskey to drown it out and he was ashamed of that, but he’d never contemplated leaving Stiles an orphan. He didn’t take stupid chances.

Without Stiles, there would be no reason to care.

God, he couldn’t lose his son.

He opened his eyes and glared at the walls of the basement, ignoring the technicians collecting evidence around him.

Gerard and Kate Argent should pray Noah didn’t catch them before the FBI. They’d already cost too many lives. If they had added Stiles to that number, he would put them both in the ground, law be damned.

That volcanic fury and fear had to be shoved down, though. He had to act like he was in control for now, so he didn’t find himself sidelined from the investigation. If he was shut out, he would go mad thinking of all the ways he’d failed as a parent.

He knew beyond doubt that if Claudia weren't dead, she would have already nut-kicked him and filed for divorce for how badly he'd done by their son. And if Stiles was dead, she would come back from death to cap Noah with his own service revolver.

If Stiles was dead, Noah knew he'd do it for her.

What kind of father didn't know his son had been taken until he saw the evidence in the lair of a serial kidnapper and killer?

Stiles was smart though, so quick and clever, and tougher than he looked, Noah reminded himself. He just had to find his son.

He made his way out of the basement and began giving orders to his people. APBs and BOLOs to begin with, then he’d organize a search of the surrounding area. If Stiles had got away, he could be in the woods, hurt and alone.

He wanted Chris Argent in an interrogation room again too.

God damn it, Noah had spent too much of Stiles’ life being a cop instead of a father, but for once he was going to use who he was to help his son.

~~~

 

Chris tightened his hands on the steering wheel of his SUV. He hated having two werewolves in the seats behind him. Especially two new-bitten ones with little to no reason to control the urge to kill him. The alternative would have been one behind him and one beside him, though, so instead Stiles had claimed shotgun.

He watched the kid surreptitiously, quick side glances in between checking the two werewolves in his rearview mirror and paying attention to the road.

In the light of day, Stiles looked even worse than Chris had originally seen.

One eyebrow was split, the eye beneath swelled shut and purpling. Split lip, contusion on his cheekbone. Bloody goose-egg on his skull easy to see through the buzzed short hair. Chris couldn't see under the layers of plaid and t-shirts, but he could guess as the bruises that would deepening in color over the kid's ribs, on his back, on his arms and his thighs where he'd been kicked repeatedly.

It made him ill.

Stiles' jaw was set, though, and whatever Chris' father and Kate and his other – remaining – hunters had done, they hadn't broken him. The one eye he could likely see from was cold and furious, whatever pain he felt stuffed deep down, compressed until it turned to coal to fuel him.

The werewolf boy, who was large enough he wouldn't have needed werewolf strength, stayed quiet. He didn't even glare. The dense, heavy weight of his judgment and hostility kept Chris on alert, but he knew already if this one attacked it wouldn't be on impulse.

"What are we looking for?" he asked.

"Your Evil Fucking Relatives," Stiles said. "Derek and Isaac would be even better, but – " He threw up his hands, catching one in the shoulder strap of his seat belt and having to fight loose. "Good luck there, because Derek's Camaro was still parked in front of the police station this morning, so they're probably running around on foot."

Chris opened his mouth but closed it. Considering what his father had done or ordered done to Stiles and his sympathy for the werewolves, Stiles had every reason to characterize Gerard as evil.

"What do we do if we find them?" the girl asked from behind Chris. He could hear the fear in her voice.

"I can take you home," he offered. "Or to the hospital." He took a deep breath. "Or to the station."

"No," Stiles snapped.

"No," the two werewolves echoed.

He saw the girl reach for the boy's hand and clutch it in the mirror.

She'd cleaned up in Kate's bathroom. The mascara streaks were gone, along with any marks, no matter what damage she'd suffered. The boy was healed too, on the outside.

Chris couldn't forget the way she'd pulled her mini-skirt down as far as possible after she came out of the bathroom, obviously uncomfortable. He'd heard her whisper, "My underwear is down there," to Stiles.

"Take some of the bitch's," Stiles had told her.

"I'd rather flash the entire town," she'd replied and walked outside.

Chris couldn't make himself forget it. Every time he thought of it, he tasted bile rising to the back of his throat. She was the same age as Allison. She went to the same school. If she'd been raped, it was by the same men who his father had had training and 'testing' Allison.

They'd 'snatched' Allison to see how fast she could free herself and Allison had complained to Victoria about one of them groping her.

He kept thinking of Kate. Kate now. Kate the way she was before their mother died. _Kitten_ , Estelle had called her. Kate the way she was when he visited from college. He'd found her doing target practice with a crossbow in the woods. Later he'd found the dead birds and the squirrels. _Moving targets_ , she'd laughed. Not a kitten anymore.

He'd spent his life hunting beasts that were driven to kill by their instincts. Werewolves that were out of control, out of their minds. Lunatics. Rabid dogs, he'd explained, that had to be put down as a mercy, even if hunters never showed them any. He'd never examined his beliefs before, it was too uncomfortable, but now he couldn't stop.

How much was the truth and how much was rationale?

Werewolves were animals, Gerard preached. Not human. Human law, human rights, those didn't apply to monsters no matter what they looked like. If that was true, then wanting to kill them was right.

It was all right to want to kill _them_ , Gerard preached. A 'them' was needed to excuse that Gerard and Kate and too many others just wanted to kill.

Chris never enjoyed it. To him, killing werewolves was necessary. It never made him feel good. It just needed to be done.

But if it was genuinely necessary, he reflected, why did they have to hide what they did? The werewolves hid, but they were hiding from hunters. Why let them hide? Why keep the secret? Why not expose them, drag them from the darkness into the light of day? But that would mean exposing the hunters too, wouldn't it?

It would mean judgement, rules, laws that would be enforced against them instead of a code anyone who wanted to be ignored. Accountability.

He didn't want to think he'd been brainwashed from childhood, but if he hadn't, then why had he felt so determined to keep Allison ignorant? He and Victoria had labored to raise her into a good person, to teach that hate was a poison. To always be fair and tolerant, that being strong and sure of herself didn't need to be at the expense of others.

No wonder she'd reacted so badly to Gerard and Kate's hunter training.

He needed to talk to Allison. He needed to know she was safe.

"Call Allison for me," he told Stiles.

"Sure, why not," Stiles said flatly.

Chris looked in the rearview mirror. "Behind the seat. There are handguns under the jack. Regular ammo. You should each take one." He exhaled. "Hunters count on wolves to come in close, to use their strength and claws. Take the guns."

"Hunters like to work from a distance," Stiles said. "Got a sniper rifle back there too?"

~~~

 

The journals were hidden under the lining of a rifle case. No two alike, as if Kate had picked them up randomly when the last filled up. Emily found them. She knew all about gun cases. She'd handled the same type of case, back before she transferred to the BAU. It wasn't a time she let herself think about, hunting Valhalla, undercover with Doyle, but the knowledge set she'd picked up remained. Sometimes it was even useful.

She knew how deep the foam cut out for the disassembled weapon should sit in the case and there was a half inch difference.

Emily picked them out. She handed one to Reid and opened another herself. It was a cheap, spiralbound notebook with ruled lines. The kind that went on sale with school supplies every fall. The writing inside was large and loopy at first, a child's exuberant cursive. It was also gibberish.

Emily glanced into the other journals. The same incomprehensible pattern, though Kate's handwriting had turned sloppy and slanted.

"Reid?" she asked.

He ran his finger down a page then looked up at her. "It's cyphered. It's actually very interesting. She didn't expect anyone to see these, but she still went to the effort to encrypt what she wrote." He raised his eyebrows at the other notebooks Emily had. "Are the rest like this?"

"Yes," she said and handed them over. "Even the top one, that looks like she started when she was a pre-teen."

"Let me take these to Garcia. We'll decipher them."

Emily squinted at him. "Was that pun?" Decipher the cypher.

"Word play," he said with a smirk.

She turned her back on him and studied the gun case again. Her instincts said there was more there. She ran her fingers over the lining again. Nothing. She started to set the foam back in place and stopped. She took the dark gray foam over to the window and began examining it. There, she crowed to herself as she found a dime-sized slit along one of the cutouts. She fished into it with a gloved fingertip and hooked out a flash-drive. Two more followed it. They were expensive, stainless-steel shell, flash-drives made to hold hundreds of gigabytes.

She showed them to Reid. "Something else for Garcia."

~~~

 

They switched to Lydia's mother's Benz. It was powerful and luxurious, and no one was looking for it. Kira took her father's car home and they followed and picked her up. She insisted Allison ride with her to make sure they didn't ditch her.

Lydia told Jackson where to go straight and when to turn. She didn't know where they were going, but Fate was unspooling a thread she could follow with her eyes closed.

Allison sat in the back seat with Kira and stared at the face of her phone. She had multiple messages and missed calls from her father, her aunt and her grandfather, along with Scott. She decided to ignore them all. Instead she listened to the last voice mail her mother had left her, just for the sound of her voice. It was just a reminder to not stay at Lydia's too late, but her mother had ended it with an 'I love you'.

"That was your mom," Lydia said in a distant, detached voice.

"Yes," Allison whispered.

"Did Scott tell you what happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?" Kira asked tentatively.

Allison felt another piece of herself crack inside. "What? Derek bit my mom."

Her grandfather had drawn her aside while her father and Kate were being questioned and quietly told her why her mother killed herself. Derek Hale had bitten Victoria and she'd killed herself rather than turn. He'd told Allison to be proud. He'd taken her in his arms and promised her they'd kill Derek for what he'd done. Focusing on that, on planning how, had helped a little. Kept her from falling apart. She'd called Scott later, needing to talk to someone who wasn't on Derek's side, and he had understood when she told him. He hadn't said he knew anything about what happened, though, and now she felt doubt yawn open inside her.

She knew Scott lied, but she still felt more betrayed by him than Gerard. She knew better than to believe her grandfather.

"What?" Kira squeaked. "Would someone please explain who Derek is and what's going on?" She took a breath and added sincerely, "I'm so sorry about your mom, Allison."

Allison nodded stiffly. She didn't know what she felt. She couldn't imagine Derek Hale biting her mother. She'd been shocked and angry, but now it made no sense.

"Scott's a werewolf," Lydia explained. "So are Jackson, Derek, and Isaac. Allison's family hunts werewolves. I'm a banshee."

"A wailing woman," Kira whispered.

"That's one of the things they're called in folklore."

"Okay," Kira said without arguing any of it. Her eyes were wide.

"You're just going to accept that?" Jackson asked.

"My mom is something – she won't tell me, but it's hard to miss when you live with someone, you know?" Kira shrugged. "I'm different too. I think that's why we moved here, no matter what my dad says about the job."

Lydia eyed her, then shrugged. "I don't feel so bad about dragging you into this then."

"But if Scott's a werewolf and your family – " Kira looked at Allison wide-eyed and sympathetic. "Is that why you broke up with him?"

Allison blinked back tears. "I needed time to figure out… everything. I loved him, but now I don't know if he's who I loved at all." She struggled to even out her breathing and added, "And then my mom killed herself."

Kira rubbed Allison's arm comfortingly.

"Hunters do that if they think they're going to turn into a werewolf," Lydia explained.

  
"My grandfather told me Derek Hale bit my mom." A sob escaped her.

"Your grandfather is a creep and he's manipulating you," Lydia stated.

Allison played her mother's message again.

 _'Don't stay too late at your friend's,'_ her mom said. She always sounded no-nonsense. Crisp and sure of herself. Her mom had always been a rock. But her voice softened as she finished, _'I love you, honey.'_

"I don't know what happened."

"Scott was there," Jackson said. "I wasn't, but Boyd told me when warned me afterward."

Did it matter if Scott and Boyd were there when Derek bit her mother?

"Your mother locked Scott in a room with a nebulizer pumping out wolfsbane," Lydia said. "It would have killed him and looked like an asthma attack."

"She wo – "

Her mom had been adamant. _Stop seeing Scott McCall. If you don't, we'll have to put him down._

Allison hadn't been strong enough to stop and Scott hadn't wanted to either. She kept sneaking around, meeting with him, using Stiles as their go between. In a way it had been a thrill, rebelling against her mom and dad's orders, finally choosing something for herself and not to please them. He'd been her first. She hadn't quit seeing him until Peter Hale died.

Scott was still trying to get her back. He kept hanging around, calling Allison, trying to talk to her.

If her mom had found out…

"Derek and Boyd went in there for him," Jackson went on. He was a better driver than Allison would have thought and knew how to just stay with traffic. The Benz rode so smoothly it would have been easy to drift above the speed limit and not even notice. "Boyd told me about how bad the wolfsbane poisoning was as steam. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see or smell anything, and it messed with his control. He said he wolfed out when your mom came after them. So did Derek."

If her mom had gone in a room with three poisoned werewolves and come out alive, they had meant her to live.

The rest of it was easy enough to imagine. Werewolves bit by instinct. Derek hadn't been an alpha long; the possibility of turning her mom wouldn't have registered in the heat of defending himself.

Her mother should have known better. Her mother had been breaking the Code. Her mother had been trying to commit murder.

"Why wouldn't Scott tell me?" she asked.

"You'd have to ask Scott," Lydia said and her neutrality condemned him as thoroughly as if she said he hid the truth to manipulate Allison in words. "Turn right at the next intersection."

"That'll take us to the industrial area," Jackson said.

Lydia didn't answer. Her eyes rolled up in her head and Allison could only see the whites as she turned to face her in the backseat.

"Lydia?" she asked shakily.

Lydia began speaking but it was Allison’s mother's voice that issued from her.

_"No, not here. Kate, stop it. I'm not doing this in Allison's room."_

Jackson braked and swung the Benz off the road. His eyes had gone golden-bright as he watched Lydia. He looked nearly as freaked out as Allison was.

"Mom?" she whispered.

_"I love you, Allison."_

Lydia's eerie eyes closed as she slumped unconscious.

"Oh my God, oh my God," Allison repeated to herself.

"What the fuck was that?" Jackson exclaimed. His fangs were down.

Tears leak from Allison's eyes. She'd known Kate was beyond remorse, known she was twisted and cruel since the day she saw her with Derek Hale. But she still hadn't understood how far Kate would go.

"My aunt killed my mom."

~~~

 

Penelope stopped the recording. She'd had enough, she just couldn't watch one more cellphone recording of a family burning, of Kate gloating as she tortured and raped Derek Hale in her basement, or the bad home videos of Gerard Argent molesting her as a child. She had to turn her seat around and concentrate on the new coral color she'd painted her nails.

"Happy color, happy thoughts," she told herself. In a minute she would get up and make herself a cup of tea with ginger and honey and have cookie. Cookies were another happy thing. Or they would be once her stomach settled.

She looked up as Hotch came in, followed by Emily, Morgan, and JJ.

"Did you get anything from the flash-drives?" Emily asked.

"Bad things, so many bad things, so many things I can't ever unsee."

Hotch raised his eyebrows and Penelope began listing what Kate Argent had saved on those flash-drives: her kills, her seductions, her victims, the fires, the recordings Gerard had made when she was just a little girl, and Derek Hale. Derek Hale, fifteen, lanky and innocent, drugged out of his mind. Derek Hale, soot-streaked, cored out and destroyed. Derek Hale, twenty-two, beautiful, furious and helpless.

Penelope gestured, coral pink, and said, "It's all there, more than we figured out, worse than we guessed."

"Have you gone through them all already?" JJ asked.

"Oh, my sweet summer child, no, there are days of video on those drives."

"We have to go through all of them," Hotch said, "in case there's something in one that can point us to where Kate or Gerard are now."

Reid came in, paging through one of Kate's journals. In anyone else, it would have been a casual flipping of pages, but Reid was in fact reading everything there. Perhaps a little slower than usual. He must have sensed everyone looking at him, because he looked up and blinked.

"Kate's father began molesting her as soon as his wife was dead," he said. "The older brother was out of the home at college. He began seriously indoctrinating her with a delusional rationale for the murders he committed at the same time."

" _Folie a deux_?"

"Good question. That would depend on if Gerard actually believes what he was teaching Kate or if he was manipulating her so that she would keep the abuse secret."

"He not only succeeded in co-opting her belief system," Hotch said, "she embraced the idea, didn't she?" He glanced at one of Penelope's screens that showed Derek Hale strung up as she used a cattle prod on him.

"She did," Reid said. "The journals are remarkably coherent – "

"Up until they came back to Beacon Hills, the Argents were both organized killers," Emily commented.

" – and completely delusional," Reid finished. "She believes Derek Hale is a werewolf, as were his family and most of her other victims, and that killing them was the same as killing an animal."

"Wait," JJ said, "she had sex with him."

"And others," Penelope couldn't help adding. Kate Argent liked her victims young and inexperienced.

"That began her fracture with Gerard," Reid said. "He disapproved of her 'defiling' herself with them. She channeled her confusion and guilt over the attraction and pleasure she derived from sex with people she believed weren't human and the condemnation of her father into the obsession with Hale."

"You mean, Gerard brainwashed his daughter into believing in werewolves and that they should kill them, that it was a secret calling, all to keep her quiet about the sexual abuse?" Emily asked. Her black hair swung as she shook her head. "Something doesn't add up."

"That's because he didn't come up with the idea," Reid said. "Kate is proud that her family have been werewolf hunters since before they left France. Gerard taught her that it was an Argent who killed the Beast of Gevauden. Her brother was taught the same things and married into another 'Hunter' family. It's a secret society, all based around a code."

"A code?" JJ repeated. "What kind of code includes burning children alive, torture and statuary rape? Does it include what Gerard did to Kate?"

 _"Nous chassons ceux quinous chassent,"_ Reid said.

"We hunt those who hunt us," Emily repeated.

"They see themselves as protectors of people who are unaware of a supernatural threat, that they're the only ones who can discover and stop werewolves and other soulless creatures that would otherwise prey on people," Reid explained. "That's the thread Sheriff Stilinski's son was following with his research into the occult and supernatural. He must have learned something from Allison Argent that made the connection to her family's history."

"I'm sure the Sheriff will be relieved his son isn't trying to summon demons," JJ said. If they found Stiles alive. She added, "How could people think toddlers and children were a threat to anyone?"

Reid lifted the journal. "Kate and her father don't believe in the code. In their eyes, the only good werewolf is a dead werewolf." He screwed up his face unhappily.

"Sounds familiar," Morgan commented.

"If Gerard hadn't been born and raised into this Hunter society, he would have found some other excuse. Kate's quite clearly a sadistic sexual psychopath – she derives her satisfaction from destroying the families in fires so that they are aware they're all going to die. In fact, she doesn't care if all of them are 'werewolves' or not."

"What about the brother? Chris," Morgan asked. "Was he raised into the society? Has he participated?"

"Yes, to the first. Kate's very dismissive of him, though. She writes about cleaning up after him when he refused to kill 'werewolves' because they hadn't done anyone any harm. Reading between the lines, he might believe, but he isn't a willing accomplice. He refused to indoctrinate his daughter and left Argent Arms to come here and not take part any longer."

"He said we'd know why he threw his father out when we interviewed Gerard," Hotch said.

"But he knew?" Morgan said.

"About Gerard?" Reid replied. "No. Not so far as Kate knows. Early in the journals she writes how Gerard made sure she wouldn't tell her brother. Later, she's contemptuous toward his ignorance while at the same time protective of Allison – she makes a point of always 'visiting' the family when Gerard does."

"She cares about Allison," JJ asked.

"As much as she cares about anyone." Reid looked worried. "But Allison's involved with Scott McCall and Kate has decided he's another werewolf."

"Then he's in danger from her and Gerard, maybe from Chris," Emily said.

"Very specifically from Gerard, I'd say," Reid confirmed.

"We need to put her under protection and McCall as well, until Kate and Gerard are in custody." Hotch looked at Reid. "Anything more?"

"In the latest journal, her delusions are escalating," Reid told them. "She's noticed she's losing time and she believes she's been 'turned'. It's possible she's assimilated the myth of the lamia into her version of the 'Hunter' delusion – she describes herself having scales and talons and spitting venom." He paused. "Non-metaphorically."

"Wow," JJ muttered.

"If she believes she's been made into one of the monsters she's been taught are soulless creatures that must be killed, she could suicide," Hotch extrapolated without conviction, "but given her sadistic thrill-seeking propensities, she's more likely to completely decompensate and begin killing indiscriminately. We have to find her before that happens."

"It would be good if we found her and Gerard before they find Derek Hale, too," Emily said. "Because either they will succeed in killing him or he'll be forced to kill them in self-defense."

"I'll talk to the sheriff about sending a deputy to the high school to guard Allison Argent and Scott McCall. We'll put another guard on Derek Hale if we can find him."

"Good luck with that," Morgan said, not without reason. Hale wouldn't trust them after being attacked twice at a police station and finding him without his cooperation just didn't happen.

~~~

 

The kanima dropped from the beams crisscrossing high above them as they entered. Night hadn't fallen but the sun had dropped beneath the horizon and the warehouse Gerard had picked had no lights. They smelled lizard but didn't see it until too late.

Scott broke left, but Isaac was already down, paralyzed, as Derek turned and ripped the kanima off him.

Derek was only a match for Kate in kanima form because he could out-think her. Kanima and alpha strength were close to even. Everything he knew about hand-to-hand fighting, Kate had been trained to match. One slice from her claws would win any fight for her though, so he had to be faster, stronger, and smarter.

Smarter meant getting to Gerard, the kanima's master, and killing him, which would stop her. He'd become the master, something that turned his stomach, but his only command would be to return to being Kate and never kill again.

He dodged her as she came at him once more, striking at her back before putting some space between them. She circled back toward him, dividing Derek’s attention between her threat and Gerard.

The empty warehouse must have been associated with the timber industry before the mills closed. Pine sap lingered in the air even decades later, mixed with dirt and diesel ground into concrete. Floodlights illuminated the barren space around it, leaving alleys and shadows darker by contrast, and veils of faint light fell through the interior from filth-frosted windows high on the walls.

Gerard had found himself a shadowed niche beside a support pillar. If he thought a werewolf couldn't see him there, then he underestimated the acuity of their night vision. Derek zeroed in on him immediately.

Gerard would have an automatic weapon and wolfsbane bullets. He couldn't run directly at him, even with werewolf speed. Instead Derek maneuvered himself closer with each clash with the kanima.

He raked his claws deep along her spine, ducked a swing of the muscled tail, caught it and threw her across the warehouse. She hit another support pillar with a stunning thud. Chunks of concrete smashed loose and fell in a cloud of dust. Derek winced at the reptilian screech she let loose before she recovered and scrabbled back toward him.

He spun back, ready to rip Gerard's black heart from his chest –

Derek should have expected it, but Scott's betrayal still surprised him. He'd thought… he didn't know what he'd thought. That Scott understood Gerard would turn on him as soon as he had what he wanted? That Scott's call and the seeming honesty of his worry for his mother meant something more than a way to manipulate Derek?

Maybe Scott himself didn't know which way he meant to jump until he did.

Scott tackled Derek before he could reach Gerard and held him long enough for the kanima to reach them. The slice of its claw to the back of Derek's neck was the last thing he felt before his body went numb and limp.

Gerard chuckled as Scott pulled Derek up onto his knees and stood behind him, holding his shoulders.

Derek glared at Gerard because he couldn't glare at Scott. Part of him wanted to demand why Scott would do this, part of him thought Scott wasn't worth the effort of his contempt. He was a stupid, self-involved teenager and Derek knew better than anyone what awful, self-destructive, life-ruining decisions teenagers made.

Gerard's chuckles devolved into a series of body-shaking coughs. Derek smelled the sickness sweating from his pores and thick on his breath and every exhale. Gerard's body had turned on him inside, a cellular revolt.

The kanima prowled in the shadows, approaching and retreating, hissing steadily.

Derek didn't close his eyes. He wanted to find some peace that way, he knew he was going to die, and staring Gerard in the eye wasn't worth the ugliness. Not worth the ugliness, but he wouldn't bow, and he wouldn't let Gerard think he was hiding from him.

"Well done to the last, Scott," Gerard said with a smirk. "He brought you to me, Derek, did you know?"

Talking was difficult because he couldn't draw extra air. His autonomic systems seemed to keep him breathing and his heart beating, but drawing a voluntary breath was impossible. "I did." He sounded breathless.

Gerard reached down and cupped Derek's jaw. He dug his thumb into the hinge of Derek's jaw to force his mouth open. Derek couldn't control his muscles, couldn't pull back his claws, but he retracted his long teeth.

"What are you doing?" Scott questioned in confusion.

"What I had you bring him here to do," Gerard answered carelessly. He fingered Derek's incisors. "Did I thank you for Victoria, Derek? It proved what I've always suspected."

Derek snapped at him, then spat. He had enough muscle control for that, at least. It made Gerard laugh again, laugh and cough and double over.

"What?" Scott asked.

Derek struggled to feel anything below his neck, to twitch so much as a finger. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nausea rose in his stomach. He could guess now why Gerard had wanted him alive.

"He bit Victoria and she turned," Gerard said. "There was no intention."

"I don't understand."

"Of course, you don't. The Bite might have cured your asthma, Mr. McCall, but it certainly didn't make you any smarter." Contempt dripped from Gerard's words.

"He's dying," Derek said.

"I am," Gerard agreed. "I have been for a while now. Unfortunately, science doesn't have a cure for cancer yet. But the supernatural does."

Derek twisted his neck, trying to see Scott without tipping his head back and bearing his throat. The paralysis was fading, though too slowly. He still couldn’t feel, but movement was returning. But he was still too weak. "Scott," he murmured, "don't. You know that he's going to kill me right after. He'll be an alpha."

"That's true," Gerard agreed smugly. "But I think he already knows that. Don't you, Scott?" He reached for Derek's jaw again and tried to lever it open. Derek clenched his jaw shut.

The kanima screeched angrily.

"He knows if he does this one small task for me, he and Allison can be together. She's the ultimate prize, you see. There's just no competing with young love." He dug his thumbs in again. Derek glared and tried to throw himself back, tried to turn his face away, horrified at how helpless he still was. “And he’s a good son. Doesn’t want anything to happen to his mother or friend. Do you, Scott?”

Gerard couldn't pry Derek’s jaw open, but he had help. "Hold his head still," he told Scott, who did.

"I'm sorry, I have to," Scott told Derek. “I have to protect my mom and Stiles.” He didn’t realize he was only making Gerard a worse threat.

Gerard pinched Derek's nose closed until desperation had him open his mouth for air. "Don't," he gasped. "Don't – "

Gerard jammed his wrist into Derek's mouth, forcing it in like a gag, and Scott placed a hand under Derek's jaw and snapped it closed so his teeth sank into the papery skin and stringy flesh beneath. He held until saliva mixed and ran with blood down his chin and into the bleeding wounds.

"Enough," Gerard gritted out.

Scott let go and stepped back. Gerard jerked away and cradled his wrist to his chest. Derek fell to the concrete in a tangle of useless limbs. The taste of Gerard's blood burned in his mouth. It was foul and wrong, tainted and toxic, but Derek couldn't even roll to the side as he tried to spit it out.

Grit and dirt and old oil dug into the side of his face.

Once Gerard turned, he would kill Derek to become alpha, then all the betas. Derek blinked back futile tears. This was his destiny, to be betrayed and used by the enemy to condemn his own kind, over and over.

He couldn't fight, he couldn't even get up, and he didn't have the will to try any longer.

With one eye, he could just glimpse the kanima watching him.

"Happy now, Kate?" Derek whispered.

~~~

 

Night was falling. Only a cool, pale yellow-green band of light remained on the western horizon. Halogen streetlights buzzed back at the last intersection, but the road was too far out for anything more. The fenced in lot around the warehouse was lit by floodlights, though.

Allison and Jackson spotted three hunters on guard. Lydia and Kira took their word for it.

Allison made the approach.

"Better get out of here, little girl," the biggest one threatened. He'd caught hold of Allison's upper arm. His fingers dug into her skin and he jerked her closer. His breath smelled of garlic and meat.

He had a heavy crossbow, but he'd set it aside. His two buddies were armed, one with a gun, the other with a heavy, souped-up Taser he aimed at them.

None of them recognized her. Gerard was resorting to second or third string thugs with the rest of his coterie having fled or lying low after the station attack.

"Unless you want to have a little fun." He licked his lips and leaned in toward her.

Allison stepped closer. He was standing too close-legged to knee him easily, but she knew plenty of other tricks, so long as she didn't care how much damage she did.

She kind of wanted to do a lot of it.

She headbutted him in the nose, twisted, caught his hand and broke his thumb, then came around with her fists locked together to bring them down on the back of his neck. He stumbled and fell to his knees. Something in his neck cracked audibly and he screamed as he collapsed.

The other two aimed their weapons at Jackson, Lydia and Kira.

"Whoa, that's the boss's granddaughter," one of them said as he finally caught sight of Allison's face.

"I think she broke Artie's neck!"

"Argent'll kill us if we hurt her."

Artie's friend glared. "I bet he won't mind if we fuck up the little bitch's friends."

Jackson was furious and Lydia contemptuous, but Kira was terrified and that infuriated Allison more than anything. _These_ were the people who hunted so-called monsters. Scum who got off on threatening kids and molesting girls because they knew they'd get away with it? Fuck them. Fuck them all.

"Try and I'll kill you," Allison told him.

Jackson lost control and began to shift. The one with the gun turned it toward him, but he was shocked and afraid. Allison kicked his elbow as soon as his eyes went to Jackson. Bone broke and he lost his hold on the gun before he could pull the trigger.

Jackson yanked Lydia out of the line of fire.

That left Kira left in the open. Allison knew what to do, but Kira obviously didn’t.

The asshole with the Taser fired it. Allison tackled him, but the prongs were already in flight, the wires carrying a lethal electrical charge.

Allison knocked the Taser away, but Kira was already hit. Jackson smacked the guy with the broken elbow headfirst into a wall and let him drop. Allison rolled to her feet and kicked Taser guy in the soft belly. The abdominal wall muscles probably protected him against any of his internal organs rupturing. She kicked him again, in the ribs this time.

Kira stood rigid, eyes wide and blind, while visible electricity coursed over her entire body, sparks of it sizzling firecracker bright. Clouds rushed over head insanely fast; black, looming thunderclouds forming out of nowhere. Lightning cracked sideways through them, earsplitting cracks following. Kira's black hair lifted in the sudden wind as orange fire surrounded her.

She lifted her arms, tipped her head back, and lightning cracked down to meet her fingertips in a blinding explosion.

The impact tossed Allison onto her back. She muffled a scream and scrambled to her feet. She couldn't see where Kira had been and was terrified. People survived lightning strikes, but Kira would be burned and have nervous system damage and maybe neurological problems, if the lightning hadn't stopped her heart.

From far away, fuzzily, she heard Jackson. "Fuck."

She blinked hard and the glare resolved into three people. Jackson and Lydia holding onto each other.

And Kira, standing perfectly fine, in a singed black circle. Electricity almost dripped from the tips of her hair. Her eyes were alight. Not like the werewolves, but with an internal fire. The edges of her clothes were singed, but she was unharmed.

"How?" Allison whispered. She was amazed, and curious, but mostly happy Kira wasn't dead. "What happened?"

Kira held up her hand, fingers spread wide, and watched the sparks dance between them. "I don't know, but electricity doesn't hurt me."

"Let's figure it out later," Lydia said. "We have to get inside. I still want to scream."

~~~

 

Erica supported Stiles as they made their way inside the warehouse. She had her glorious werewolf strength back. Stiles clutched a heavy handgun, because Chris knew he could shoot. Boyd had one in his waistband – Stiles had double-checked the safety was on – because Boyd was steady. Erica was sticking with her claws.

Stiles had gobbled four aspirin from Chris' emergency kit and Boyd had done the pain drain magic again, while Chris himself patched him up. So Stiles could at least move.

Chris was a walking armory of concealed weapons, along with a heavy crossbow.

He also had zip ties and duct tape – Derek’s bad boy looks might scream a serial killer, but Chris was the one with the gear – and no problem choking out a hunter buddy they found guarding the backdoor.

When he recognized the sonovabitch that had ambushed him outside his own house, Stiles insisted on searching him for his Jeep's keys, then kicked him in the gut. He'd have done it again, but sneakers weren't great kicking shoes and his toes hurt.

Chris caught him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back before gagging and tying the hunter up. "Come on," he said in a low tone.

Stiles glared at the guy once more then followed Chris through the next door, through what must have been an office. Broken venetian blinds covered a half-glassed wall facing into the main interior.

Before Chris touched the doorknob, Boyd said, "I hear five heartbeats inside."

Eric tipped her head back and inhaled deeply. "McCall, Isaac, Derek, that sick bastard and the lizard woman."

Chris nodded, bringing the crossbow up ready to aim and fire. Boyd opened the door for him.

They were behind Gerard. Stiles didn't see the kanima, but he did see Derek, forced to his knees and Scott holding him there. Stiles froze, helpless, as his best friend helped fucking Gerard Argent force Derek into biting him. Then Derek was flung to the ground and Stiles realized he was paralyzed.

Chris brought the crossbow up and aimed it at Gerard. "Monster."

Gerard chuckled almost gleefully. "Soon."

"Why?"

"As soon as it takes, I'll kill him." He smirked at Chris; apparently sure Chris wouldn't shoot him. He likely didn't even consider that Stiles and Boyd could be armed. The thing was that neither of them were ready to just shoot someone, no matter how much Gerard deserved it.

Thunder rumbled close by. Stiles twitched. That was pretty horror movie convenient, considering the sky had been sparkling clear with the first stars coming out when they reached the warehouse. But that had sounded right overhead. Lightning blasted down outside, bleaching everything flashbulb white. The thunder hit at the same time, a boom that rattled the glass in the high windows and mingled with an explosive bang.

Stiles blinked against the afterimage; his night-sight ruined. The floodlights outside were out and the darkness engulfing. No electricity. The lightning must have hit a transformer close by.

“Stiles,” Scott exclaimed. “You’re okay! I did what he said so you would be – “

“Shut up, Scott.” Stiles wasn’t in the mood for forgive him for his wrong-headed decisions. There was stuff you didn’t do, no matter what. He didn’t care if it was because Scott was stupid for Allison or trying to protect his mom. Fucking Gerard meant to kill Derek, not to mention all the murders he and Kate had already committed. Helping him for any reason was wrong.

“What Stiles said,” Erica added.

Lantern werewolf eyes glowed gold. It occurred to Stiles that they might be able to see in the dark, but they gave away their positions with those eyes.

Gerard ignored the abrupt shift in the weather. Stiles wasn't so sanguine – hah! – because he would swear that he felt the air snapping with electricity. All the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck were standing up.

“I can’t believe you’d do this,” Chris said.

"You don't think I'd allow an animal like this to command me?" The sneer sickened Stiles, as did the way Gerard prodded at Derek's limp body with his shoe. The man wore brogues. "Once I am alpha, I will wipe them all from the earth."

The high-intensity flashlight that was mounted on Chris' crossbow and provided the only illumination now. Chris kept it aimed at his father, but it spilled over just enough to make out outlines and movement near him.

Stiles squinted at the darkness instead, trying to spot the kanima. He didn't know what he'd do if he did find it but knowing it was there and not knowing where freaked him out.

Gerard ignored the crossbow and held up his arm as if to show them the bite and remind them of what it would mean. The blood from it ran down to his elbow and dripped to the ground. It looked thin, watery and too dark. Gerard frowned at it.

"Doesn't look like it's healing, old man," Stiles remarked.

Erica laughed suddenly. "Derek told us, you know," she said, happy and vicious. "All the things the Bite could fix, all the dangers he knew about – hunters, going feral, kanimas – " She shuddered and the kanima lifted its head to hiss at her. Oh, there it was, way, way too close.

"And rejection," Erica finished gleefully.

Gerard's head jerked toward her. The blood running down his arm was getting darker. Perspiration beaded on his face. He glared at Erica, at all of them. "What?"

"Bite rejection," Boyd told him matter-of-factly. "You're a bad bet for the Bite. Sick, weak, old. Unwanted."

"Soaked in wolfsbane," Stiles added because it had to be a factor. "You've probably been poisoning yourself for decades."

Gerard's face was swelling.

"That's not a superstition about intention or drinking water from a pawprint," Stiles went on. Taunting Gerard was better than a painkiller. Well, no, it wasn't, but it was what he had for the moment. "It's biology. Rejection looks a lot like a fatal anaphylactic reaction. No one could deserve it more, either."

Gerard doubled over and nearly fell. When he straightened, everyone could see the black ooze dribbling from his mouth. He began coughing violently. More came up. It splattered on his shirt front and began running from his nose and eyes.

"Bite rejection's fatal," Erica stated. She crossed her arms in front of her, cocked her head, and made a production of not saying anything more, just watching as Gerard went to his knees, cursing between vomiting, shaking through bouts of obvious pain.

"Chris!" he called out. "Help me!"

A new voice spoke up from the other end of the warehouse. "Like Aunt Kate 'helped' my mother?" Allison demanded.

Neither Erica nor Boyd looked surprised, but they'd likely heard Allison arrive. Lydia, Jackson, and Kira Yukimura were with her. An ever-shifting orange-red aura surrounded and towered over Kira. It looked like a fox. Sizzling sparks flickered between her fingers. Thunder boomed again, so close the building it shuddered when the lightning hit, so overwhelming and bright it blinded everyone. Ozone prickled at Stiles' nose, a clean, sharp alternative to the rotten smell beginning to waft off Gerard.

Lydia had a white-knuckled grip on a giant cattle prod like the ones the hunters had used on Erica and Boyd. Allison had another crossbow.

Scott turned toward them too and his eyes widened. "Allison?" he blurted. "What are you doing here?" And, then, damning, "Uh, Kira?" He cringed. "Uh, I know this looks… bad… "

"Get the fuck away from Derek," Jackson growled. His eyes lit up yellow and his fangs dropped. He didn't stop walking forward and gave scathing looks to Boyd and Erica. "Are you just going to stand there?"

Kira gave Scott such a sad look that Stiles wanted to punch him for putting it on her face.

Gerard coughed then said, “If I don’t walk out of here, my men kill your mother, McCall.”

“Don’t believe him,” Stiles shouted.

“My mom – “ Scott insisted.

Scott's eyes went yellow and bright. Boyd and Erica began growling. Stiles could feel it rumbling out of Erica where she was still holding him up against her. Her hands curled into fists and he took that as a sign he should step away and stand on his own.

Jackson reached Scott and Derek. He shoved Scott hard, hard enough to make him stumble back and nearly fall. His claws glinted. Scott came back at him with a swipe that drew blood.

"Fuck off, McCall," Jackson said. The claw marks on his cheek knit together. His eyes were lambent, the shift overtaking him completely, bones cracking as he assumed his beta shape. "Stay here with this sick psycho. Just get out of our way."

"Stop them," Gerard spat, "stop them or I'll have your mother killed, do you hear me!?" The kanima nosed at him, tongue flickering, and recoiled from the ooze, hissing.

Scott tackled Jackson.

Boyd's growls became a vicious snarl. He launched himself at Scott and Jackson. Erica leaped into the fight right behind him. Stiles could only think what an idiot Scott was. He could have turned to Derek and been honest, he could have come to Stiles, he could have called the cops – he knew Stiles' dad would do anything for Melissa. Stiles wasn't even sure if he believed the threat was the reason Scott had allied with Gerard. Scott wasn’t rational about werewolves. He hated Derek like Derek had been the one to bite him.

Three against one ended fast, with Scott pinned bleeding to the ground under Boyd's bulk. Jackson and Erica lifted Derek to his feet between them.

The kanima screeched and shifted restlessly, keeping its place between them and Gerard. Its heavy tail dragged back and forth over the concrete, scales scraping with a slithering noise that set off all Stiles' primal fight-or-flight instincts.

The neon in his head was lit up with _Flight_. People said he had no self-preservation instinct. Of course, he wasn't running, so maybe they were right. The anger under in his chest insisted on _Fight._

"You threatened his mother?" Chris asked in disgust.

"You were always weak." Gerard lifted his head enough to glare. "I'll take you all with me." He extended one trembling hand toward the kanima. "Kill them," he commanded. "Kill them all."

It moved horribly fast. It went for the werewolves first. Its claws sank into Jackson, who screamed and lost his hold on Derek. They both went down, Derek beneath Jackson. Chris' light jerked and jumped as he tried to get a bead on the kanima.

Stiles couldn't make her out except as a silhouette, but the sound of Allison firing the big crossbow was unmistakable. He expected it to hit either the kanima or, better yet, Gerard.

The kanima bit the crossbow bolt out of the air. Chris' light steadied on it and everyone stared, stunned. It spat the broken quarrel to the ground.

The light around Kira flared brighter, bright enough even the humans could see.

The kanima stared at Allison. Allison reloaded the crossbow steadily, cranking back the draw with more strength that Stiles ever had. She was scared though and not even trying to hide it.

"Allison," Chris breathed, "get out of here."

"Kill her," Gerard ordered the kanima. More black ooze bubbled from his mouth, as if the hate inside him had turned to a poison anyone could see. "Kill her!"

The bolt from Chris' crossbow sank deep into Gerard's chest. He clutched at it before falling. He tried to speak again, but choked instead, and scrabbled at the concrete.

The kanima wailed like it had been hit.

Derek writhed out from under Jackson's bleeding body and staggered to his feet, eyes burning. He bent and caught up Jackson's arm, tugging him away, even while clearly still half numb. Lydia darted forward to help, while Erica and Boyd kept between them and everyone else.

Stiles stayed beside Chris. Not out of human solidarity. He just hoped everyone had forgotten him.

Allison aimed her crossbow at the kanima again.

"Aunt Kate," Allison whispered, voice filled with sorrow. "Aunt Kate, I love you. Don't do this. You don't belong to him."

The kanima rose to two feet, upright, and reached toward Allison with a talon-tipped hand. The claws receded, the scales faded back into bare skin, until everyone could see Kate. She looked at her hand, not quite close enough to touch Allison. Tears were slipping down Allison's face. Kate lifted that hand to her own face and ripped her human fingers down her cheeks.

"Kate, no!" Allison cried out. "Stop!"

But Kate's skin was already rippling back into the scaled shape of the kanima. Her claws returned. She sliced at Allison. One claw caught on the crossbow Allison threw up to block the blow.

Allison dodged away. She kept hold of her bow.

Chris struggled to keep the light on Kate, the beam veering wildly. The glow slashed back and forth in a confusion of flickering, moving bodies. Derek leaped on Kate, tore into her back and was thrown off her. Erica darted in, clawing at her tail, wrecking her balance and slowing her enough so Lydia could drag Jackson out of reach again. Boyd fired the gun Chris had given him, but the hits didn't slow Kate down, healing nearly instantly.

Kira darted forward and slapped her hands onto the kanima. Electricity arched over them. The kanima seized and gave out a human scream, its body reverting to Kate's again.

"Now!" Chris shouted. His light settled on Kate. Her eyes were wild and human as the sparks from Kira's electrocution chased themselves over her skin.

The _snap twang_ of the crossbow echoed over the heavy gasps from everyone. Kate jolted back, her eyes widening, as the heavy crossbow bolt sank through her chest. Life disappeared from her face with a sigh as she crumbled down to the dirty concrete.

Everyone waited in silence, waited to be sure, waited for some terrifying supernatural jump scare to reanimate Kate or Gerard, but neither stirred. Blood soaked into the concrete floor, adding to the dirt and stains.

Allison began crying audibly until Chris wrapped his arms around her, telling her, "You had no choice. I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm so sorry you had to be the one."

Kira's electricity had been discharged. They were in the dark again except for Chris's wayward light.

"Isaac," Derek said hoarsely. He sounded as wrecked as the rest of them.

"Here," Isaac croaked. Stiles heard him more than saw him until he spotted Isaac's eyes.

Derek sighed, the sound full of relief. "Stiles, you smell hurt."

"I'm feeling way better now," Stiles muttered.

Chris shifted back from Allison. "We need to get all of you out of here."

"We need to clean up," Derek said.

"I can handle that," Chris said.

"Again?" Derek asked dryly.

Stiles felt a hysterical bubble of laughter himself. Chris did keep volunteering to dispose of bodies. Maybe he'd always wanted to be an undertaker.

A second light came on, a mini-LED Lydia had retrieved from her purse. "Fingerprints, hair, shoe treads, transfer," she said crisply. "Get rid of the bodies, sanitize the site – bleach and fire."

"You came in the front," Chris said. "Were there any vehicles there?"

"Three SUVs and three morons," Lydia replied. "Even if one of them recovered enough to carry the other two and take off, there should be two left."

"Good. They should have gas and heavy construction plastic. I have Clorox in my truck along with a couple of portable floodlights. – Boyd, if you could get them? Leave the gun in the case. There are also gloves in the emergency kit."

Chris had a very well-equipped emergency kit. All it lacked was an IV and a freeze-dried surgeon. Stiles could testify.

"Bleach will still show up with luminal," Lydia said, "though it will degrade the DNA enough to pose a problem with PCR typing. It will still be identifiable as human or otherwise."

"Been looking up how to clean up crime scenes?" Stiles joked. As a terminally curious researcher and the sheriff's son, he knew a lot about what kind of forensic evidence tended to be left at crime scenes and what screwed that evidence up for investigators. He wasn't sure why Lydia would know.

"Women need to know how to clean up blood stains." He could hear the eye roll that accompanied her reply. "Every month."

Stiles cringed.

"I have an oxygen bleach in the truck too. It's parked out back."

"You earned the Homicide Merit Badge in the Boy Scouts, didn't you?" Stiles commented. He couldn't help himself.

"Keys," Boyd said. Chris tossed them. Boyd loped off to retrieve Chris' crime scene kit.

Stiles swayed and wished he could sit down somewhere. Lying down would be nice too. Painkillers, though, those would be the best. Aspirin was not cutting it.

Derek sidled up beside him. "Let me," he murmured before resting his hand on Stiles' nape. It was warm and heavy and felt nice and then the pain started slipping away. He groaned under his breath.

Derek was taking the pain away. He was better at it than Boyd.

Chris used his crossbow light to search the floor until he found a duffel bag and long case propped against a support pillar. He knelt and opened the case. A heavy sword gleamed within.

Derek flinched, his hand tensing on Stiles' neck.

Stiles' eyes had finally adapted enough that he could make out faces as more than pale blurs. Chris Argent looked like he'd aged ten years, been gutted, buried, and brought back as a zombie – an aware, enslaved, voodoo-type zombie.

Chris went to Gerard's body first. Gerard had fallen back with one hand locked around the crossbow bolt. Chris lifted the sword and let gravity do the rest. The edge sliced a third of the way through Gerard's neck. The next two blows finished the decapitation.

 _Highlander_ lied. Heads did not come off with one whack.

It made Stiles wonder how many hacks Gerard had used to cut through the werewolves' torsos. Then he gagged.

Boyd came back with the floodlights, the plastic, the gloves and more duct tape.

Better light didn't make anything better.

Stiles didn't offer to help. Neither did Derek. Isaac stepped in, though. Jackson had begun twitching. Scott kept stepping closer to Allison, then back when she ignored him, then looking at Kira. Kira and Erica had their arms around one another. Kira kept petting Erica's tangled hair.

"Keep the head separate and don't take out the bolt," Chris told Isaac as he and Boyd lifted Gerard's body onto the plastic.

He touched Allison's shoulder as he walked to Kate's body. She was naked and no matter how awful she'd been or the horrible things she'd chosen to do, Stiles felt distinctly uncomfortable with that. At the end, she'd been Gerard's puppet, turned into something worse than the things she'd thought all deserved to die. He was glad she was dead, but any desire for revenge had turned to dust. There was no benefit, nothing fixed or healed by piling suffering on suffering. Or, at least, not by the wrong person paying a debt.

Gerard? Stiles would have been fine if Chris had hacked that evil fuck into even more pieces.

Chris lifted the sword again, his expression etched in a mixture of fury and regret as he brought it down. He cleaved Kate's neck in two with one blow.

Huh. Score one for _Highlander_ after all. Also, Chris Argent's work-out routine.

Allison sobbed.

"We hunt those who hunt us," Chris declared. "My father was a monster. So was Kate. He made her that way."

Derek said quietly, "Allison."

"What?" She smeared tears from under her eyes with the heel of one hand.

"She loved you – "

"And I killed her!"

"You saved her," he said.

Chris had straightened and stiffened and stared at Derek, but Derek ignored him.

"The only thing worse than becoming what she did would have been if she hurt you, Allison. You saved her from that. You saved her from the kanima and what Gerard was making her do. Maybe it's not a comfort, but it's the truth."

"How would you know, you hated her?" Allison asked.

"I do know," Derek said and his voice cracked. "I loved my uncle."

She jerked her head up and looked at him, eyes wide and dark, her mouth parted but with no words.

"Peter would have hated what he became. He would have died before hurting Laura, if he hadn't been warped, enthralled, and ruined. But he's not going to hurt anyone now. Neither is Kate. And they aren't hurting either."

Chris gave Derek a grateful, respectful nod. Allison closed her eyes but looked a little less wrecked.

"Can we just get the fuck out of here and do the weepy bonding over aunt and uncle-cide later?" Jackson complained. He yelped as Lydia punched him the side.

"All the hunters and one of the SUVs are gone," Boyd said. "We should get out of here as soon as possible."

Isaac finished taping the plastic around Gerard's body.

"We need to put together a story," Chris said, "that doesn't implicate any of us."

"If we blame it all on Kate and Gerard, the FBI won't stop looking for them," Stiles aid. "Neither will my dad." He gestured to his face. "This is going to be hard to explain away, not to mention they'll find the farmhouse and there's enough forensic trace there to prove all of us were in that basement."

Derek pulled more pain from him. Stiles slumped into him. "We can't just pretend nothing happened."

"Kira and I aren't tied too closely to this and we haven't been to the farmhouse," Lydia said.

"You should get back to your house. You were there all day and night," Derek suggested. "Jackson too. Isaac, go with them."

Lydia nodded. "I got sick at school and they took me home and stayed with me. We watched _The Notebook_ and studied. Allison, you were there too. If anyone at school saw us leave, they saw you go with us."

Chris made a relieved gesture. "Allison, go with them. Get out of here now."

"But what are – "

"You were with Lydia, so you can't know, so there's no reason for you to know what we'll tell the cops," Stiles said. "If anyone asks why you cut class or look upset, fuck them, your mom's dead and you need to be with your friends. Especially since your dad told you to stay away from Grandpa Evil and – and your aunt." He was briefly proud of himself for muffling his reference to the kanima as Crazy Kate to Allison's face. Derek might be a big enough man to feel pity for the sadistic bitch, but Stiles wasn’t.

He scrubbed at his eyes, trying to get rid of some of the grittiness. "And, and, Allison, you knew your dad would be pissed at you cutting school, so you turned your phone off or didn't answer him."

"True," Chris said dryly.

"Chris has been driving all over town looking for you and doesn't know diddly about anything else. Uh, you had your phone on, right?"

"Yes."

"The Feds can trace where it pinged, so say you went out to Kate's farmhouse, no one seemed to be home, and you left. You don't know about the dungeon of doom."

Chris raised an eyebrow but nodded in agreement. Allison hesitated then went to him and hugged him tightly again. "We'll be at Lydia's."

"Go now."

"Hey, Kira?" Stiles called as she, Lydia and Jackson, and Allison headed out. "You were awesome tonight, but you should just go home and if you're questioned, you don't know anything, you just went home."

She gave him an exhausted smile. "Okay. I dropped them off and went home."

"We'll figure out what kind of awesome soon," he promised. "So awesome."

"Kitsune," Derek said. "I can see the aura."

"A fox spirit?" Stiles blurted, but it fit what he'd seen. But it was weird Kira didn't know what she was.

Kira gave them all an awkward half handwave and skittered after the other three, clearly freaked out by Derek's bombshell. Or well, her own bombshell and Derek's identification of it.

They – which meant Chris and the werewolves while Stiles supervised – finished the ugly task. The impromptu body bags and the plastic-wrapped heads were loaded into one of the abandoned SUVs. The keys weren't in it, but that let Stiles show off the hotwiring tricks he'd picked up.

Stiles debated with himself, but in the end, there wasn't any way to explain things that didn't involve Scott.

Derek stepped up. "Scott needs to get out of here, too."

Scott, who had been lurking – not helping – perked up. "I can go? I want – I need to make sure my mom’s okay. He said -- "

“He lied.” Stiles glared at him. "Get the fuck out. You can just say you biked around mooning over Allison all day and _you don't know anything about anything_. That ought to be easy enough even for you."

"I'm sorry, okay?" Scott protested. "I didn't know what to do."

"You didn't know setting up Derek to be murdered and leaving me in that psycho's hands was wrong?" Stiles heard his voice spike up, but he couldn't help it. Couldn't help the sob that followed, because Scott's betrayal felt worse than bruises and cracked ribs. Scott should have called the cops the instant Gerard wasn’t there. If Gerard’s threat to Scott’s mom had been real, they could have had security look out for her, even taken her to the police station – admittedly, the police station hadn’t been the safest place lately, but Scott’s choice left Stiles hanging and Melissa ignorant of her danger. Not to mention setting up Derek to be murdered. That did not fly with Stiles.

There were things you didn’t do, not even for those you loved, because they wouldn’t want you to.

Murder, mainly.

He might hate and fear that his dad’s job sometimes put him in danger. Might even put Stiles in danger, if some crook tried to get at his dad through him. But he was proud that his dad was willing to put his life on the line to protect people. His dad wouldn’t sacrifice someone’s life, not for himself, and not for Stiles. That was harsh, but his dad had principles. Stiles might not live up to his dad’s standards, but he at least recognized them.

"Stiles – "

Derek, Isaac, Erica and Boyd snarled at Scott.

"Get out," Stiles told him.

Scott bolted out of the warehouse.

They hammered out the rest of their story. Boyd and Erica were running away – true. They were trying to hitchhike south of town when Gerard and Kate picked them up and tasered them – true. They woke up in chains in Kate's basement – true.

Stiles was snatched from outside his house that morning – true. The guy who took him brought him to Gerard – true. They took him to Kate's basement and beat the shit out of him – true. Gerard and Kate meant to use him as a hostage to make his father interfere with the investigation, so they could escape – not quite true, but believable.

Kate realized that the cops would find the farm soon. She convinced her father to give up on the plan and leave. Stiles could say he heard them arguing over it. Pure bullshit, but he doubted anyone would call him on it. The rest of the story was that Erica managed to back up to Stiles and pick the tape around his wrist loose – lies, but more believable than shutting off the electricity gave the werewolves their super strength and healing back – and the three of them ran into the woods in a panic once they were all loose.

Chris would drop them off at a believable distance.

Isaac and Derek could walk into the temporary police station later and explain they'd been lying low after Kate and Gerard tried to kidnap them out of the station. They'd escaped. They holed up in the abandoned train depot. Lies, lies, lies.

"Actually," Stiles said, "it would look better if you get to the cops before this place goes up."

"Avoid detail," Chris said. "Detail trips you up. Say you don't remember, say it was confusing, you were in shock, you don't know everything. You don't know why Kate and Gerard were trying to take you. You don't know what they were thinking."

"Are the cops going to arrest me for killing my dad?" Isaac asked. "Or, like, escaping custody or something?"

"Unlikely," Chris said, "but even a half decent public defender will get you off."

"Yeah, and you're still a minor," Stiles piped up, "not to mention your dad was an abusive piece of shit."

"Just get out of here," Chris said. "I can rig a time delay fuse to burn this place, but we are on a clock."

Derek squeezed Stiles. "Erica," he murmured.

She came over and took up the job of keeping Stiles on his feet.

~~~

 

A borrowed Butte County deputy picked up the three of them on Mariani Road out past the highway a mile or two from the Preserve. It was believably within panicked running distance of Kate's little house of horrors; they passed the turn off on the way to the hospital. The guy looked nervous under his calm professional act, even after Stiles identified himself as the sheriff's son. Boyd and Erica were virtually carrying Stiles by that point, though, so it didn't much matter to him when they were all bundled into the backseat cage.

~~~

 

Hotch glanced up when voices rose. The temporary police station had a high ceiling and voices echoed differently than in the old building. He got to his feet as he recognized the source of the excitement.

Prentiss, Reid and Morgan followed him to where Derek Hale and Isaac Lahey, looking clean and unharmed, were just inside the doors and facing several deputies and other agents and investigators. Several of officers had drawn their weapons, which had Hale and Lahey wide-eyed and frozen.

"Weapons down!" Sheriff Stilinski commanded before Hotch had to take over. His voice softened. "Hale, Isaac – come on, we need statements."

"Am I under arrest?" Isaac Lahey asked. His voice shook a little.

"No, we just need to know what happened to you." Stilinski eyed Hale with considerably less compassion than he'd bestowed on Isaac. Hale was an adult who had eluded capture until he wanted to come in. Lahey was a minor who had cooperated. Stilinski was having hard time accepting they were both victims. "Both of you."

"Jesus, kid," Morgan blurted from behind Hotch. "You were gutted. How can you – "

Isaac flinched, took a step closer to Hale in search of comfort, then shook his head. His Adam's apple bobbed. "She, um, no, that stuff, the ve – the paralyzing stuff? It made – made you, like, hallucinate?"

"There was blood, kid."

"Kate must have brought it with her," Hale said. He settled his hand on Isaac's shoulder. Isaac relaxed into it visibly. When and how had the teenager met and started trusting Derek Hale so much? Why did Hale care about him? Because he must, he'd brought David Whittemore in to represent him before the attack. Why?

"Test it. It won't be Isaac's." Hale stopped and his expression became horrified. His words were a little stilted; he was thinking of something else. "I hope it won't even be human, but it won't be Isaac's."

“Not human?” Stilinski repeated.

“Animal, maybe from a dog,” Hale explained. “If it's human, she didn't get it from a blood bank.”

If Kate Argent and her father had used human blood, they'd taken it from another victim.

Hale added in a grim tone, “She hate – she hates dogs.”

Hotch noted the little hitch in his wording. Hale had almost spoke in the past tense.

Hotch pulled JJ to take Isaac's statement. The sheriff's department weren't looking at Isaac as a suspect in his father's death any longer. Traces of Kate's designer paralytic had been found on Victor Lahey's remains, along with the wound patterns from her claw weapons. Whatever she used in most of her killings was still missing, but they had found blood-stained gloves with claw tips among her belongings.

He and Prentiss handled taking Hale's statement. Hale kept his statement simple, vague enough no one could call him on a lie. He admitted Kate had seduced him at fifteen. His sister and he had fled town to avoid being separated. He hadn't known Kate was obsessed with him until he met her again after returning to Beacon Hills. She'd bought off the police once; he hadn't trusted them to do anything when his sister was murdered.

He didn't offer any explanation for why Kate had killed his family. His secrets remained secret, much to Hotch's frustration.

"What do you think?" Prentiss asked while the statement was being transcribed and printed for Hale to sign.

"He'll never tell us more than he has to."

"Isaac's just a kid though. We could catch him on an inconsistency, break his story."

"According to Hale, Isaac was unconscious from start to finish. Hard to pick apart 'I was unconscious, I don't know'," Hotch pointed out. There was nothing to contradict, no lie to be caught. Memory was an iffy trick on the best day; throw in physical and mental trauma and it could be seared into someone's memory or never make it into memory at all.

The stories from some of the deputies who had survived the attack, of giant lizards and wolves, supported the theory that the paralytic was also a hallucinogenic agent. All accounts from that night became questionable as a result.

Prentiss made a face. Which meant she knew Hotch was right.

He considered Hale, though, because there was a subtle difference between the way he'd withheld before and the way he did now. Hale was hypervigilant, trauma acid-etched into his manner and mind too deep to be smoothed away, but today he wasn't scared Kate or Gerard Argent were coming for him again.

"Damn it," Hotch breathed.

Prentiss caught up with his train of thought. "Sonovabitch."

If Hale wasn't worried about the serial killers who had wiped out his family, assaulted and targeted him repeatedly, and attacked a police station to get to him, then he knew they weren't a threat any longer. Only one way would Hale believe that.

Hotch walked back to where Hale was waiting. Hale watched him. The man had a stillness to him, a detachment that seemed almost alien. Alien, but not evil. He'd encountered enough human evil to feel it when he was in the room with it. He'd faced it in the interview room only days ago, across from Gerard Argent.

"Are Kate and Gerard Argent dead?" he asked bluntly.

Hale cocked his head as though he was listening to something else. He didn't smile, nod or shake his head. He didn't twitch. His hands were still on the table. "How would I know?" he asked eventually. He didn't look away from Hotch.

Hotch waited and when Hale offered nothing else, he nodded to himself.

"Did you kill them?"

"No."

Hale let the calm mask slip enough for Hotch to read him easily. "We don't have to be killers. My mother told me that. I believe it."

~~~

 

Derek relaxed another fraction when he heard the radio call from a deputy. Boyd, Erica and Stiles had been picked up. They were on the way to the hospital to treat Stiles' injuries. Someone would need to take their preliminary statements there. Agent Hotchner dispatched Jareau and Morgan.

He went back to reading through the printed statement he'd been handed, making sure it said what he'd said before signing it.

Exhaustion pulled at him.

The Sheriff clattered out of the temporary station, trailing the stench of fear and anger, sweat and gun oil, all mixed with the acrid tang of fresh adrenaline. Hope wasn't a smell, but the chemical cocktail of hormones and toxins the body gave off could be parsed with experience. A recipe wasn't the same thing as a cake, but a cook knew how the cake made from it would taste.

Derek listened to the chatter of the Beacon Hills deputies and their neighbor county fellows without listening in to each conversation, paying attention only to volume spikes and names. No one had mentioned Kira, Lydia, Jackson or Allison so far. They were looking for Chris along with his sister and father, but not looking for them to be found together.

He knew he should have kept his mouth shut when Agent Hotchner asked those last questions, even with no one else present to corroborate. It felt good to, however elliptically, own his nature and his choices though. He and Laura could have hunted Kate down, baited her into an ambush, turned the table of hunter and hunted. Maybe he'd been too damaged, too frightened to imagine biting back, but he preferred to believe he and Laura had held onto the best of what their mother taught them. They'd tried, however unsuccessfully, to live and not be consumed with revenge.

He'd let himself become distracted and lost his place on the transcript before him. Derek sighed and started reading the page from the top again.

Agent Prentiss provided a cheap ballpoint pen. It sat on the table along with a yellow legal pad. Derek scratched a back-and-forth scribble to check the ink was running. The blue looked nearly black against the yellow paper. Absently, he drew a spiral, the elegant physical example of the Golden Ratio, the Fibonacci Sequence found over and over in nature from the center of a sunflower to the werewolf embodiment of revenge.

The spiral fitted revenge. Revenge started from one action and escalated. There was no end to it, only more and more victims. Revenge was open-ended and never complete.

Derek stared at the spiral. He set the pen to the line and turned it to close the spiral inside a circle.

Closed.

Finished.

Agent Prentiss cleared her throat. Derek dragged his eyes up. "Ready to sign?" she asked.

Derek coughed and nodded. "Sorry. Yes. I just zoned out." He signed and initialed each page. Prentiss counter-signed them.

She glanced at the doodle.

"Fibbonaci Sequence," Derek said.

"Like a nautilus?"

"Ram's horns, snail shells, flowers."

Her brows went up, but she didn't comment. Voices rose in the main room. Derek cocked his head while Agent Prentiss turned. Horns and sirens sounded from the fire station down the block, along with the deep rumble of the fire engines. A deputy dashed by, paused, and told Agent Hotchner, "Explosions. Warehouse fire, out near the old sawmill."

Chris' delayed fuse had finally done its job. Derek and Isaac were impeccably alibied, while Stiles, Erica and Boyd were at the hospital. None of them had any connection to the scene where Kate and Gerard were put down, even if the hunters Gerard had brought with him were picked up. Those hunters would keep their mouths shut because anything less would implicate them in murder, kidnapping, torture and other crimes. Anything about werewolves would just win them a free trip to the psych ward and a course of anti-psychotic meds.

"You're free to leave for the moment," Prentiss said.

"Isaac?"

"Why are you so invested in him?"

"He survived Kate," Derek said. "There aren't many of us. And he's a kid, alone. I've been there."

"Well, he'll be placed with a temporary foster family by DCPS tonight and until a family member or guardian is located and his father's estate probated."

"I hired Whittemore to defend him," Derek said. "I can get someone in to represent his interests tomorrow." Jackson's father would still be in the hospital, but he could call on the Dellalunas now. With Kate and Gerard dead and the FBI investigation reaching back to their previous crimes, the hunter infrastructure in North America would fracture. All but the craziest would go deep underground.

And, Derek thought, abruptly, he could get a motel room, order take-out, take a long hot shower, and sleep instead of hiding.

No more lairing up in an abandoned train depot. In a very real sense, his nightmare was over.

"You okay?"

He smiled genuinely. Prentiss blinked then smiled back as Derek said, "I am now."

 


	6. Part Six

**~~~November 26, 2012~~~**

**Waxing Gibbous Moon**

"So, daddio," Stiles said. He tried to perch his hip on Noah's desk, miscalculated the angle, but rescued his fall with an ungraceful lurch. Noah swallowed a smile. Someday, his son would be used to his growing limbs, but he doubted Stiles would ever be particularly graceful. Claudia had been a bit of a klutz too, her mind already out the door while her body stumbled awkwardly behind. He'd loved her for it; he loved his son, but he wasn't blind to their shared eccentricities.

"What, oh, son of mine?" he replied.

Stiles had saved himself.

As terrible as his worry had been, it was matched by the relief he'd felt when it became clear that Stiles _wasn't_ part of the killings. God, it had been like he could breathe after being trapped under the weight of an ocean.

"Any news on the Father-Daughter Duo from hell?"

"Stiles, you know I can't talk about – "

He needed to do better by Stiles while he still had him. Sixteen was too close to the day Stiles would be old enough to vote, old enough to enlist, old enough he'd be leaving for college, no longer a boy. He was barely a boy now, Noah acknowledged: Stiles had been taking care of him, from the days of pouring him into bed when he was drunk to doing the grocery shopping, monitoring Noah's health and diet to even doing online banking to pay the bills.

He'd thought he'd go insane when he realized Stiles was missing and likely in the hands of Gerard or Kate Argent. Killers who hadn't hesitated to burn children in their homes. Fury burned through Noah every time he thought of that excuse for a human being acting as the high school principal, so close to Stiles and Scott and so many others, of what they now knew he'd done to his own daughter, twisting her into a monster herself, and how close they'd come to taking his son from him the way they'd taken to lives of so many others.

"Considering what they did to me and the others, I think I have a right to ask about whether I should worry about them coming back," Stiles interrupted. He didn't look or sound like a kid in that moment.

Noah sighed. "Nothing verifiable."

Stiles waved at the cluster of FBI agents preparing to leave. Dr. Reid and SSA Rossi were talking with Derek Hale. Hale was as still and watchful as ever. He had on that leather jacket with the too long sleeves again. Paltry armor against the slings and arrows fate had launched at him over and over.

“Oh, come on.”

“Stiles.”

Stiles sulked visibly, then perked up. “What about Derek?”

“Derek?” Noah repeated with raised eyebrows.

“Derek,” Stiles repeated lightly. “I feel like we can bond over being kidnapped and threatened and stuff by Crazy Kate. Also, I feel really shitty about the trouble Scotty and I caused him.”

Noah sighed and accepted that Stiles had decided to draw Derek Hale into his circle. There would be no stopping it, no matter how Noah wished otherwise.

“Don't harass him,” Noah said.

“Moi?”

Christ. Derek Hale. Noah scrubbed at his face.

Hale had made Noah's department look like the Three Stooges on nitrous, but then it wasn't Derek Hale's job to make them look good; if the department had done its job right in the first place, maybe he would have trusted them.

If they'd done their job after the fire, the killings here and now could have been avoided. Derek had been trying to survive. Noah wouldn't grudge anyone that.

“Come on, Dad, I need to know if I should be watching my back,” Stiles said.

“Just be careful,” Noah told him.

A blond woman had used Kate's credit card in Portland, but the cameras at the motel never caught her face, and the license plate number she gave had been false.

A man answering Gerard Argent's description had been caught on a traffic cam in Reno. The car in question had been stolen and found torched only hours later. Noah had his doubts that either incident had been genuine. The Argents had gone underground and the secret society the BAU thought they'd uncovered was laying false trails.

Secret fucking societies. What the hell was that, anyway? Noah almost wished for a normal drunken domestic call out. No more whack jobs with fake claws and zealots convinced they were waging a lunatic covert holy war. Just people being assholes to each other.

"Great," Stiles drawled, but he shrugged in a 'what're ya gonna do' fashion.

Something had changed in Stiles these last months. Not just his secretiveness, or the weird interests, or the trouble and crime scenes he'd found multiple times. Maybe it was the schism with Scott.

Noah had worried about gangs or drugs or satanic cults before. He hadn't worried about Stiles' friendship with Scott, which seemed strained if not over. Stiles wouldn't discuss it.

He'd forgotten to worry about sex too, because he honestly wasn't ready to think of his child as a sexual being. Or, and he was ashamed to admit this to himself, a romantic one, despite Stiles' longstanding crush on Lydia Martin. There had never been a chance of reciprocation there. Stiles had a kind of confidence about him now that Noah recognized could be very attractive, though, and he was spending time with several beautiful girls, including Lydia.

Including Allison Argent too, which Noah wasn't so thrilled over. He worried about that girl, coming from that family.

It hurt like hell to see it so clearly, but Stiles wasn't _his_ any longer; Stiles was his own. The law might consider him a minor for another two years, but Stiles had grown up while Noah was too busy to pay attention. He was an adult in every way that mattered. In two years, he would be gone and, if Noah didn't want him to be gone entirely, he needed to start treating Stiles better.

Christ, he wished they'd caught Gerard and Kate, though. Knowing they were still free would haunt him, along with the faces of everyone they'd murdered. Stiles could have been one of those victims, and Noah could have been one of the grieving parents.

Stiles was watching him with a patience Noah hadn't known he possessed.

"Did I tell you how glad I am you're okay, kid?" he asked. "You're everything to me."

"Same here, Dad."

Tonight, when he got home, he would pour out all the alcohol in the house. If that didn't work, he'd start AA.

"I'm going to do better," he promised.

"Sure, you are, dad," Stiles replied. Noah winced at his sardonic tone. Stiles didn't believe him.

~~~

A soft drizzle diamond-beaded every surface, filtered the light cotton soft. Derek Hale waited under the tiny overhang at the back door to the veterinary clinic when Alan parked. Damp glittered on his crow-black hair and the darkened shoulders of his leather jacket, but he seemed otherwise unruffled, at ease with the weather as he would be in the wild.

Alan schooled his features into a placid blank. The wards on the clinic hadn't activated, so Derek hadn't tried to get inside. He didn't appear upset or impatient. In fact, his sharp-edged features were as smooth and calm as Alan liked to appear.

"Derek," he greeted him on the way to back door. He needed to disable the alarm system he had installed after Gerard showed up and open three locks. There were wards to release and reset as well.

"Deaton."

Traffic passed on the main road two blocks away. One of the dogs kenneled overnight barked restlessly. The pine perfume of the woods, never far away in Beacon Hills, made his lungs feel clean, the taste of the rain at the back of his tongue an unconscious comfort. After the long fire season, the rains, when they came, relaxed something inside, restored the soul as well as lakes and rivers.

Alan let himself savor it. Scott was a decent employee and the clinic was kept clean, but the bleach lingered.

"What brings you to me?" he asked Derek.

Derek drew a large manila envelope from inside his jacket and handed it to Alan. It had been folded longwise. It was still warm from being kept next to him out of the drizzle.

"Loans. Leases. Debts." The gleaming amusement in Derek's eyes reminded Alan of Peter, before, when he knew he would get his way.

Alan opened the clinic and gestured for Derek to go inside. Derek did and followed him to his office. Once there, he sat down and bent back the little metal prongs holding the envelope flap in place. He read the papers from inside while Derek desultorily glanced through a heavy text on the effect of drugs on different animal species. The papers were what he'd expected from Derek's words outside.

Traditionally, emissaries needed cover jobs. Something that didn't scream werewolf or druid or supernatural to werewolf or witch hunters. Druids were drawn to professions that tied into the natural world. Herbalist, pharmacist, librarian, midwife, those were all too obvious. Alan's sister was a counsellor. He knew others who ran landscape businesses, used bookstores, florists, cobblers, weavers. The most powerful magic worker Alan had ever known ran a quilt store.

When Alan gave his emissary's oath to Talia Hale, he had already been veterinarian. He'd used his paltry savings to buy out the town's previous vet's practice. It hadn't left much in the way of funds to establish his own. Packs didn't pay emissaries, any more than they paid each other. Distance was necessary. Talia had loaned Alan the funds to set up his clinic, leased him the clinic building and the house he lived in, and never called the debt or the rent due instead.

Alan had forgotten the matter, though the savings allowed him a profit margin that allowed him to travel, hire a helper, and offer discounted costs to whoever he wanted. Talia would never have called the loan or renegotiated the leases. The estate executor and managers since had no authority to change any of the terms. Laura had been killed before she ever assumed control. Peter was gone as well, so that left Derek.

Derek, who Alan had always disliked for his blood line, for the secrets only Talia and Alan knew, after Talia took the memories from her pack.

Kate hadn't been the first Argent to sleep with a Hale.

She hadn't known, though, nor did Gerard. It wouldn't have stopped either of them or Alan might have said something. Or he might have kept his counsel until the deed was done and Derek was dead.

Derek didn't like Alan, didn't trust him, and wanted him gone. Alan couldn't fool the animal instinct that prompted that.

The legal gambit came as a surprise though. Alan had considered Derek too blunt to use the system against him. He'd expected claws and threats, actions he could use his magic to fight. Rowan ash might keep Derek out of the clinic or the house, but it wouldn't stop the sheriff's deputies sent to evict Alan.

"I don't have enough money to pay either of these loans off," he said.

Derek re-shelved the book. At least he was respectful of books and belongings. "I know," he said. "Allison ran into Deputy Graeme at the coffee shop the other day. She told her about something she'd remembered – she overheard Kate and Gerard talking about getting more drugs from you. I want you gone from Beacon Hills and Hale territory."

Alan didn't breathe until his chest began to ache. Exile, and he had few to no friends outside this territory. The Dellaluna Pack barred him to the south. Satomi Ito had turned him away six years ago. He would have to travel east and look for territory unclaimed by pack or coven to establish himself once more.

Bitterness flooded him once he could breathe again. Allison Argent. She was as poisonous to the Argent line as Derek proved to be to the Hales. Victoria, Gerard, and Kate were all dead thanks at least in part due to Allison's choices. Some would call it justice and balance restored, but they weren't about to lose all they'd struggled to build.

"Even you can't control your heartbeat all the time," Derek murmured. "It spiked just now. You don't like that the pack and the Argents have made peace."

"Do you think you're the first?" Alan heard himself reply and cringed at the loss of control.

"I know that Gerard put out Deucalion's eyes when he tried to negotiate a peace treaty for more than one separate pack."

Alan was expert in controlling his reactions and micro-expressions, even his heartbeat and breathing. He should have been able to fool Derek. But there were parasympathetic reactions in the body that even a master yogi couldn't control outside a deep trance. Derek was a born wolf well-versed in reading human's true reactions from their scents rather than words or faces.

He would know when Alan told the truth.

"The Hales and Argents were entwined years before the fire," Alan told Derek spitefully. "Your mother believed there could be peace between pack and hunter. Cooperation. She found an Argent who believed the same things. Or maybe they wanted those things because they found each other."

"Chris?"

Alan shook his head. "Alexander Argent. He was the youngest of his generation. Only a few years older than Chris, who was his nephew. He was very progressive for a hunter, never mind an Argent." Not progressive enough to accept that werewolves weren't less than human, when it came to his children, though.

"What happened to him?"

"Bit, turned, dead," Alan said dismissively. "He was traditional in the end."

Derek regarded him thoughtfully. He was all alpha strength and knife edges to look at, but there was softness in him that didn't come from his mother or his father.

"What's the purpose of this story, Deaton?" he asked.

"He was your father."

"No."

"For six years, he came and went. The rest of the pack tolerated him because of Talia and because of you. Like her, they believed you being a werewolf would change things."

"No."

"Yes," Alan insisted. He'd hated it. Hated Talia for choosing an human who wasn't him.

Alexander had been careful to hide his liaison with Talia from the other Argents. No one even knew a pack was in Beacon Hills. It was his suicide that alerted the hunters to the Hale Pack, even if there was no proof Talia had been the alpha to bite him. It was enough to strike the tinder of fanaticism in Gerard into the obsession that had culminated in the devastation of both families.

"Then your human sister was born."

"Cora's a werewolf."

"Your human sister, born eleven months before Cora," Alan told him.

Derek drew in a shocked breath. "I don't have a human sister."

"You don't remember her. Alexander took her. As soon as Talia told him the baby was human, he took her to be raised as an Argent. For all his well-meaning words, he didn't want his human child raised among monsters." Alan let it go unstated that Alexander hadn't cared about the werewolf boy he'd sired and seemed to dote on.

"My mother wouldn't let a hunter take one of us!"

Talia hadn't, but Alexander had known her, known the pack, just as he'd known that none of them would endanger the baby, even if it meant he escaped, so he'd prepared. He'd tricked them all and made it away with the baby girl, but not before Talia had bit him, deep and with intent.

"If he was around for those years, if the pack knew about him, why don't I remember him? Why didn't Laura or Peter or anyone ever mention him or this sister you say he took?" Derek demanded.

"Talia took your memories of him. She took the memory of Alexander, of who your father was, and of the child he stole from the pack from all of you."

_"Why?"_

Because Alexander was dead. If they'd gone after the Argents to find where he'd taken the child, it would have been war. Talia had been straight-backed, tearless, as she listened to Alan tell her how it had to be. Just weeks before, she'd ripped the memory of Peter's child with his werecoyote lover from them both to keep him in the pack. Balance, Alan had reminded her, had nothing to do with love or mercy.

"The Pack would have never given up while they remembered. The Argents were too dangerous. Talia made the hard decision." Perhaps as a kindness too, so that she didn't need to explain to a five-year-old why his father no longer cared about him or would come to see him. Talia had taken Alan's advice, but she'd never shared why with him.

"Why tell me now?" Derek might believe him, but that didn't allay his suspicion of Alan's motives.

"As a demonstration," Alan explained. "I am the last keeper of the Hale Pack's secrets. Send me away and you lose all that I know. Can you really afford to toss away a valuable resource, Derek?"

"You worked with Gerard."

How could Derek know that? Even Gerard's scent should have been gone from this office after so much time.

"He threatened me. I laced his 'cures' with rowan ash." Rowan ash and every other herb poisonous to werewolves and men. Gerard shouldn't have asked for more. Alan had told him there was none. No more unicorn blood, no miracles.

"You told him about the Ito Pack," Derek stated. "I'll never trust you. You keep too many secrets and share the wrong ones."

Of course, Gerard had made sure to poison the well. He was ever a spiteful bastard.

"You have until the end of the month to get out. Six months to sell the practice. I assume the equipment is yours, you can get someone to take over, if you like."

"I'll have to let Scott go."

Derek's eyes flared alpha scarlet. "Scott has made his choices. I'd tattoo him and run him out of the territory for what he'd done if he weren't a minor. I have little doubt that some of those choices were egged on by you."

He headed for the door. "You need to feed the animals, so I'll leave you now. I wouldn't want to upset them."

"I know where Alexander took her!" Alan called out.

Derek surprised him by asking, "How long have you known?"

Alan inclined his head. "As soon as I saw her."

"When did you see her?"

Realizing that he couldn't leverage the information into a way to control Derek frustrated Alan. He considered denying Derek the satisfaction of answering. But Derek would likely turn to Scott's incredibly annoying friend, the Sheriff's son. That boy was horrifying in how quickly he could put together disparate data and reach the right conclusions. He had a spark of magic too, smothered by his insecurity, but still there and working when he believed in what he was doing. He believed he could figure anything out… the spark made the evidence reveal itself to him.

Were Derek to tell Stiles what Alan had already conveyed to him; Stiles would leap to the correct conclusion effortlessly.

"With Scott."

Derek's eyes widened.

Alan wondered that no one else had seen it, but he wasn't sure Derek and Allison had been in the same room close enough for a comparison. Allison had Talia's dark eyes and hair, but the cheekbones and especially the jawline had come from Alexander. To be precise, from Alexander's mother, Marianne de Valet, who had been Marcel Argent's second wife. She'd had those striking pale green eyes, as had Alexander. And Derek.

"He must have taken the baby to Christopher and Victoria and left her, knowing that he would turn before the full moon."

"And then he killed himself to make sure his alpha couldn't compel him to reveal where she was," Derek concluded with disgust.

That hadn't occurred to Alan. He'd assumed Alexander killed himself out of revulsion toward the thought of becoming a werewolf. He had never and could never experience a beta's compulsion to please and obey their alpha. Only a born werewolf would think of that first.

Or maybe Derek just didn't want to believe his father had rejected his own existence so completely, even though he had no memories of Alexander any longer.

"One month, Deaton," Derek said. He walked out through the back and the dogs in the kennels raised a panicked racket, barking, baying, snarling and howling in response to the alpha werewolf. The kennels would reek – even to a human nose – of fresh urine when he went back to clean them.

For an instant, he considered leaving the job for Scott to perform after school, but his patients were blameless. He would do it. It seemed he had no other options here or wherever he went.

He'd relaxed and been contented acting as a vet and no more in the quiet six years between the fire and now. He'd told himself his responsibilities to the Hale pack died with Talia. He'd lied to himself that he didn't desire to be an emissary any longer after every pack he approached rejected him.

Derek's dismissal shattered that illusion.

Yet whether he'd succeeded or failed as a druid and an emissary, he was a very good veterinarian, and he would continue to be.

Starting over would be difficult, but if he considered it, leaving behind Beacon Hills, werewolves and the supernatural, might be a turn for the better. No doubt Derek would be a terrible alpha. Inexperienced, without allies or support, no emissary, only bitten wolves in his pack. Enemies would come for him and hell would rain down on Beacon Hills.

Alan would be better off far away. In a few years, there would be no pack in Beacon Hills or at least no Hales.

~~~

"Sit back down," Melissa ordered as Scott went to push himself away from the breakfast table and leave. She'd heard his story. She was his mother, though, and all too familiar with Scott's way of spinning what he did to excuse himself.

"Mom," he moaned in protest, but settled back at the kitchen table opposite her.

"No, I want to make sure I have this straight."

"Fine."

Lord, the petulance was not endearing. He'd been such a sweet boy, right up until the last few months. To think, she'd considered Stiles sometimes a bad influence. She'd known Scott was at least fifty percent responsible for the two boys' shenanigans, but she'd thought Scott's bad decisions were egged on by Stiles.

Stiles could hardly be blamed for what Scott had just told her.

The very worst, though, was she didn't see any remorse in her son.

She curled her hands around her coffee mug, letting the warmth transfer from the ceramic into her fingers. Her joints ached many mornings. She knew she could look forward to arthritis like her abuela had. But Abuela didn't let it stop her and Melissa wouldn't either.

Now that Scott was a werewolf, he wouldn't have to worry about things like swollen joints or pneumonia any longer. No more asthma lurking ready to send him to the emergency room. He'd traded those worries for hunters and controlling the animal instinct to chase down prey.

"Peter Hale bit you and you became a werewolf," Melissa said.

"Yeah."

"Allison Argent is the daughter of werewolf hunters, from a family of werewolf hunters, among which was a woman who burnt down a house with an entire family inside."

"They were werewolves," Scott said mulishly.

Melissa raised her eyebrows. "Were they all? Weren't several of them children? Are you saying they deserved to die, in agony – " Melissa had treated burn patients. Very little compared when it came to pain. " – because they were werewolves? All of them?"

Scott wouldn't meet her gaze. Good. At least he had some sense that was wrong. Somehow, she'd failed to hammer morals and decency into Scott's head. He'd always been so kind she'd never worried. He understood right and wrong.

"Maybe not all of them," Scott admitted.

"That's good. Otherwise, you and I should be punished for your father being a jackass."

Melissa sipped her coffee and waited for Scott to assimilate that. She hadn't tried to make Scott hate his father. Rafa had done that all on his own. She wasn't above using it to help Scott learn a lesson.

"Derek Hale tried to help you learn how to control being a werewolf, even though he was in mourning for his sister, in danger from the Argents, and trying to find the other werewolf who bit you," Melissa listed. "Even after you trespassed, defiled his sister's grave, lied and falsely accused him of murder." She lifted her eyebrows while Scott squirmed.

"He's a dick!" Scott burst out.

"Pro tip, everyone is when they're hurting."

Scott still looked sulky and defiant. "He said I had to stop seeing Allison!" he burst out.

"If I had had a clue of the true situation I would have too," Melissa snapped at him.

Scott's mouth fell open and he looked utterly shocked. "Mom!"

"Leaving aside the danger that dating a werewolf hunter's daughter posed to you," she told him, "you had just become a werewolf. You're a minor, a teenager, and there's a reason you don't get to vote or drink yet. You could have lost control and hurt or killed her, Scott. Did you ever consider that?"

"I'd never hurt Allison."

"Like you'd never hurt Stiles?"

Melissa set the mug down. "I am so angry with you, Scott. So disappointed. Not because you're a werewolf. Because you have been selfish and irresponsible."

"You don't understand," Scott protested.

She almost laughed. "The teenager's mantra. Parents don't understand. But, Scott, I am older than you. I have been a teenager. I do understand. The one who doesn't understand is you."

"Allison broke up with me because of him."

"How?"

Scott opened his mouth and closed it twice.

"I think Allison broke up with you because you repeatedly made choices she disagreed with and disrespect her agency."

"Um, what? I don't – I don't get that?"

"Allison broke up with you because of you," Melissa said tiredly. "Not because you're a werewolf, I don't think. Not because of Derek Hale. Not even because of her family. Allison lost her mother and her aunt and her grandfather one way or another. Her whole life has been turned inside out. She doesn't need someone who doesn't love her on top of that."

"How can you say I don't love her? Mom, Allison is so amazing, and beautiful and kind and she makes me feel so happy when we're together – "

"I don't doubt she's amazing and kind and she's lovely, but all I heard just now was what _you_ get from being with her."

"Huh?"

"Scott, you're in love with your idea of Allison. Every time she does something that doesn't match that fantasy you have, you blame it on someone else, because 'perfect' Allison wouldn't do something that made you unhappy. But real Allison is a real person and she doesn't exist to make you happy."

She got up while that hopefully sank into Scott's head. The coffee was cold, so she dumped it down the sink and rinsed out the mug. He was still looking stunned when she turned around, so she leaned against the counter and waited.

"I really love her, Mom."

"Doesn't matter. If she doesn't want that from you, then you must step back. Loving her doesn't mean she owes you anything in return."

From the stunned look on Scott's face, that had never crossed his mind before. Melissa cursed herself. She'd done her best to raise Scott into a good young man, but he'd still soaked up that true love forever bullshit along with the idea that a woman would of course love him if he loved her.

The clock on the microwave reminded her she didn't have all day to go over this with him. Her shift started in two hours. Broken hearts and werewolves aside, she still needed to pay the electrical bill.

"Allison's decisions are Allison's to make," she stated finally, ready to close that subject. "Your choices are what's bothering me."

Ah, yes, and there was Scott's guilty wince. Well, at least, he had the sense to feel guilty.

"You helped Gerard Argent and his daughter, the psychotic bitch who burned the Hales, try to kill Derek, while you knew they had kidnapped Stiles." Melissa waited. "Isn't that the gist of what you've told me, Scott?"

"I thought – he threatened you, that he'd make something bad happen to you, if I didn't do what he wanted!"

"And you believed him because he had Stiles?" she asked more gently.

Scott nodded. "He was all taped up and they had him in the back of his Jeep. And I couldn't let anything happen to you, so I – I got Derek to go where Mr. Argent wanted him. I didn't care what happened to him."

"Or what happened to Stiles."

"What, no, he would have let Stiles go."

Melissa knew Scott wasn't stupid. He wasn't lazy, had never been, and worked hard at his job with Alan Deaton. But he was so naïve and clutched onto that black-and-white naivete so hard, that it could look like it. Like his teenage preoccupation with himself and his wants, she hoped he would get over that. She'd just assumed it would happen gradually, probably while he was in college, as it so often happened with twenty-somethings. But he needed to start thinking beyond immediate consequences now or he was going to get someone hurt.

Scott was a werewolf now. She didn't know how that changed how he thought, what it changed in his neurochemicals and instincts and emotions beyond the physical. Maybe it was to blame for his obsessiveness. She'd like some explanation for the way he'd been acting and not thinking.

Because people had already been hurt and while Scott hadn't wanted that, he'd been complicit. She'd seen Stiles in his hospital room after he was found. He'd been beaten badly. No matter how he bounced back, Stiles wouldn't be the same and he wouldn't be who he would have been without that experience. The course of his life had been shifted and they were lucky it hadn't been ended.

Then there was Erica Reyes. They'd done a rape kit on her. Nurses gossiped. Kari said it had been positive for semen.

That might not have happened if Scott had come to her or gone to the police.

Scott seemed oblivious.

"No, Scott," she said slowly, "he wouldn't have let Stiles go. He wouldn't have let Erica Reyes or Vernon Boyd go. He wouldn't have let you go, once he had what he wanted from you."

Scott shook his head jerkily. "But – "

"Not to mention the criminals – yes, criminals, Scott, not 'hunters', a thug is a thug is a thug and that kind of man is in it because they like it – he had working for him. Stiles saw their faces. He knew who Gerard was. Even if he'd succeeded in this horrific plan you've described, those men would not want to be identified and arrested as kidnappers."

"Oh."

"Oh, my God, Scott, use your brain." She'd protected Scott too much. She'd wanted him to stay innocent as long as he could. But this – this werewolf transformation -- meant he needed to grow up. Sixteen was still a child, but Scott had to be an adult now. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and promise everything would be okay, but it wouldn't. Believing that would would only hurt him and lead to him hurting others.

This was going to cost him and she couldn't change that.

He crumpled his mouth the way he always did when he wanted to cry. Melissa wished she could just hug him and make it go away. She didn't want to be harsh with him, but it seemed like nothing got through to him.

"You will be very lucky if you haven't lost Stiles as a friend," she told him instead.

"I'm sorry."

"Now, you're sorry, because _you've_ lost something, because you didn't get what you wanted, because people are angry and disappointed in you and that hurts. But I don't see any sign you're sorry because you did something wrong."

He looked shocked. "Wrong?"

"Scott, you helped a man who intended to commit murder."

"Yeah, but it was Derek," he said with such a complete lack of comprehension Melissa was horrified.

 _"Are you saying it's okay to murder people you don't like_?" she demanded. "Did I just hear that come out of your mouth?"

Scott recoiled in his seat and it was reassuring that, immensely strong supernatural creature of the night or not, he still recognized that she was in charge. Melissa pushed away from the counter and loomed over him (thanking God he was sitting and that she was on her feet).

"I didn't mean it like that," he mumbled.

"How did you mean it? Explain that to me."

He just looked at her, still wide-eyed, and she hoped she was finally getting through to him. She was too angry to buy the kicked puppy act this time.

"You owe so many people apologies, but, Scott, they don't owe you forgiveness. No one is obliged to accept an apology. Do you understand? Nothing you did was okay."

"It's just all messed up, though! I never wanted to be this – this thing!? I just wanted to play on the team and be with Allison and be _normal!_ " Scott started out soft, but he ended with a shout as he pushed his chair back with a screech and jumped to his feet. His eyes had gone from beautiful dark brown to bright yellow.

Fear crawled along her nerves, but he was still her son, her sweet, self-centered baby. He'd had something immensely traumatic happen to him, something that couldn't be undone. His transformation had not been his choice. He was just as scared as she was, under the teenage bravado. Besides, Melissa had faced down scarier patients in the emergency department. She'd faced down her ex-husband when she threw his drunken ass out.

"Sit. Down." Melissa pointed a finger at him. "Sit down."

Scott looked horrified and cringed, then hurriedly dropped his butt back on the chair.

"No, you didn't want to be bitten by a werewolf." Melissa stroked his cheek. "It's hard. It's not fair. Scott, that is life. If you go through it thinking it should be fair, that you are being wronged, you will spend your life unhappy and disappointed. I know you have a good heart. But you have to use your head as well."

"I'm sorry, Mom."

"Good, then you'll listen. What happened to you is unfair. But what you did, helping Gerard Argent? Went beyond unfair into wrong. You were accomplice to attempted murder, knowingly, and I don't care if Derek Hale is a dick, or a werewolf, or even a criminal – you knowingly helped a man try to kill him."

Tears welled and slid down Scott's face.

"If you weren't a werewolf, if Derek Hale wasn't, if people who were there weren't willing to cover for you, Scott, you would be charged and probably go to jail. Your life would be over."

"But – "

"No. I love you, I will always love you, never doubt that. You did something terrible though. You made the wrong decision though it was out of love. I won't lie, I am disappointed in you. You did it, Scott. Not werewolf Scott, just plain Scott Delgado McCall made the decision that it was okay to help kill someone because you were scared and angry and didn't like them.

“I did it to save you and Stiles!”

“But it wouldn't have,” Melissa told him softly. “And I'm not okay with someone else dying to save me." She wiped at his tears. "Scared and angry are not good enough reason, threats are not a good enough reason, and not liking that person is certainly not. If it was, I would be a mass murderer many times over."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Scott mumbled.

"You are so lucky, Scott, you have to realize that. You're alive and you're here and you aren't a murderer, you aren't going to prison or losing your future. You have a chance to make amends, to be a man and apologize to the people you've wronged."

"Do you think Stiles will forgive me?" he asked in a child-like voice.

Melissa started to say 'of course', but there was no of course about it. "I don't know, Scott. That's up to him."

~~~

Gerard and Kate Argent were, officially, in the wind. BOLOs and APBs had been issued nationwide for them. Their passports were flagged, their bank accounts frozen, their property confiscated. Emily knew it was all wasted effort. They were dead. It might never be proved, but they were.

Argent Arms and its subsidiaries were being dismantled. Their involvement with terrorist activities in the US had the French government examining the European parent company as well.

The Argents hadn't operated in a vacuum. The 'Hunters' were spread across the country, embedded within the citizenry. The Argents would have plenty of boltholes.

Emily knew they'd be examining intelligence on them and helping plan ops to find and stop more of them for years to come. The BAU would have reams of reports to write. Domestic terrorism scared the shit out of the government anyway but mixed with a secret society that might stretch back hundreds of years and operated like a hybrid black ops cult was orders of worse

These weren't immigrants or refugees, and they weren't being radicalized, because they were indoctrinated and trained from birth. They were hard core fanatics. In a post-Cold War world, intelligence and security agencies' best advantage in fighting terrorists was their lack of tradecraft. Not these 'hunters', they knew how to operate under the radar and how to infiltrate and generate cover when they couldn't.

If Gerard and Kate hadn't gone off the rails, the 'hunters' would still be operating without anyone but their victims realizing it.

That meant Emily found herself failing to feel any elation as the BAU jet lifted off from Sacramento International. They would be working hard, but they would be chasing ghosts.

If she was honest, though, she was a little relieved too..

No bodies would ever be found, but Hale, Lahey, Reyes and Boyd were all too relaxed for her to believe Kate or Gerard were still out there.

Odds were that Kate and Gerard died in the warehouse that had exploded and burned unnaturally hot and fast the day after the police station attack. Everyone on the team realized that, but none of them were discussing it. Better not to when they might be deposed or cross-examined on it someday. Some sleeping dogs should be let lie.

JJ sat down opposite her. "God, I'll be happy to see Will and Henry," she remarked. "And wear something not from my go-bag."

"I'm going to pick up the entire menu at Indian To GoGo, get Sergio, take the longest bath on record and walk around my apartment in my underwear all weekend," Emily declared.

JJ grinned. "As much as I love Henry, I miss when I could do something like that."

"I imagine Will does too," Rossi remarked as he joined them. He still moved with a hesitating wince but had been discharged from the hospital without complications.

Reid ambled over and took the fourth seat, opposite JJ and Rossi.

"I feel like we didn't finish what we started," he said. "Like there's still a thin curtain between us and the truth. We can see the shapes and the movement and so we've guessed at what was happening, but we'll never really know."

"That's profiling, kid," Rossi told him.

"But I feel like this time we missed something."

"Maybe we did, but we figured out who the unsubs were."

"But we didn't stop them," Reid insisted plaintively.

Emily looked down. JJ sighed. Rossi looked like he needed some pain meds, age showing more than usual. "It could have been worse."

"How?"

"The unsubs could have succeeded in killing Derek Hale and gone on to target other families if we hadn't been called in. Gerard Argent could still hold a job giving him access to teenagers. Sheriff Stilinski's son might not have had the opportunity to free himself and the girl and the other boy before Kate or Gerard killed them."

"We could have lost you, old man," Emily teased Rossi.

"That would have been a true tragedy," he agreed.

"But they're still out there and their pathologies mean they won't be able to stop themselves killing again," Reid objected.

"Somehow, I don't think so," Emily said.

Rossi raised his eyebrows, then he nodded and redirected, "Uncovering the rest of their network and shutting it down won't be easy. They've infiltrated law enforcement and operate all over the country."

No one had a lead on who killed the real Alan Tyhurst, after all, or any clue how the killer had known about his assignment to Beacon Hills.

"We won't be working the case," Hotch said as he joined them. He'd been at the back of the jet, on the phone with DC, practically non-stop since they took off.

"What!?"

Emily wanted to echo Reid, but she was more of a political animal than he was. She guessed what Hotch had to tell them.

"Homeland Security is taking it over. The attack on the sheriff's department along with CBI being compromised means the Argents' group have been labeled as domestic terrorists. The tie to Argent Arms International makes it even more delicate."

"Damn it," Rossi muttered. "They'll bungle it."

"Maybe not," Hotch said. "But it's out of our hands now."

Reid fiddled his fingers together. "Maybe it's just as well."

"What?" Morgan demanded in disbelief. "Pretty boy, are you trippin'?"

Emily glared at him. That wasn't funny, not after Tobias Henkell, and Reid's struggles with what that killer had done to him.

"No," Reid replied. He looked up. "DHS won't figure it out. We would. Which would put the people the 'hunters' are after in the spotlight too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if Derek Hale and the hunters' victims are different from most people in some way, some biological way," Reid said, "then they have a good reason for hiding from the world. Scientists would want to study them. Governments would want to contain them. The public would panic. It's better if they're left alone."

"Werewolves aren't real," Morgan insisted. "You were imagining things."

"If you say so." Reid gave him an appeasing smile and they all let the matter drop.

Emily let her head rest back against her seat back and gazed out the window at the clouds piled beneath them.

Reid wasn't wrong, but Morgan was right.

There were no such things as werewolves.

~~~

Scott watched Stiles sitting with Allison, Lydia, and the werewolves at lunch. Kira joined them after snubbing Scott. Jackson waved Danny over too. Scott wondered if that meant Danny knew the truth too.

Stiles' bruises had faded from purple and red to jaundiced green edged in yellow. He still moved slower than usually, wincing when he forgot. It bothered Scott more than he'd have guessed, seeing Stiles surrounded by other people.

They'd always been each other's best and only friends since pre-school. Scott wheezed and had to sit out most physical activities and Stiles was the weird one who talked to much and ignored social cues. No one wanted to hang out with them. It had bothered Scott a lot more than Stiles, though.

Stiles might be weird, but he was smart, smart enough it was another factor in isolating him from the other kids. Smart enough he saw through the ridiculousness of the popularity contests of middle and high school, even if he was totally hung up on Lydia. He wasn't crazy about her because she was popular or could make him popular. He thought she was perfect because she was smart too.

Everything had changed though. For a little while, Scott had had it all, everything he dreamed about: health, lacrosse, popularity, a girlfriend – though Allison was so much more than 'a girlfriend' – and he'd still had Stiles at the same time, because Stiles was nothing if not loyal. But there'd also been that fraction of Scott that enjoyed being the one that got to leave someone in the dust, of not needing Stiles any more.

It was one more thing his mom would ream him for if he'd been dumb enough to confide it to her. She had called him on every bullshit rationalization, selfish action and badly considered decision already. He couldn't argue with the facts, but he still clung to the feeling he was the victim in what that had happened.

She wasn't being fair to him.

He felt bad that Stiles was still hurt, but he should have just stayed out of it. It was Stiles' fault anyway, for dragging him out into the woods. Sure, Scott had had a choice. Stiles hadn't made him go out that night and he hadn't abandoned him in the woods, but it had been Stiles' _idea_.

Seeing him sitting with Allison, seeing her dimple and laugh at something he said, made Scott growl under his breath.

He tightened his grip on his tray and carried it toward the table.

He started to set his tray next to Stiles, since there was an empty place next to him.

Isaac looked at him, then looked away. Stiles didn't turn to greet him. In fact, everyone looked at him for the same second, then dismissed him wordlessly.

"Can I have your apple?" Erica asked Stiles.

"Going to play naughty Eve for the room again?" Stiles asked as he handed her the red fruit. She curled her red-painted lips in a seductive smile and fluttered her eyelashes.

"That was fun."

"It was a little on the hooker side, but you owned it," Lydia commented.

Scott nudged his elbow against Stiles' arm. "Hey, this weekend, want to come over for a Halo marathon?" Scott's Wi-Fi was faster than at Stiles' house and his mom hadn't even moaned about data overages the last three months – mostly because he'd ignored Stiles in favor of sneaking around with Allison.

Stiles ignored him.

"Hey!" Scott exclaimed, annoyed.

"What are you doing at this table anyway, traitor?" Jackson demanded abruptly. "There are plenty of other tables."

"I wanted to sit with my friends."

"And, again, I ask what you're doing at this table."

Scott scowled. Fine. Jackson wasn't his friend and never had been. But Danny was always nice, Allison was his ex-girlfriend, Kira was his sort of girlfriend, Isaac liked hanging out with him, Erica and Boyd were wolves too. And Stiles was his friend. He just had to get him to listen. He'd turn on the sad eyes and then remind Stiles no one else wanted him around.

He'd need to do that where Allison didn't hear, though. She was so sweet and good; she wouldn't like it, even if Scott was just telling Stiles the truth. He knew she didn't want to hang out with Stiles, he was just annoying most of the time, but she was too nice to say so.

Kira too. Just look at how Allison and she were being so friendly with each other. He'd have to figure out a way to let Kira down once he got Allison back.

First, he had to get Stiles back on side, though. Stiles always had good ideas, not to mention he'd always cover for Scott. He'd been doing it since elementary school.

"Fine, whatever," he said. He picked up his tray. "Come on, Stiles."

Stiles finally looked at him. His eyes were narrowed. It made them look darker, as did the pallor and the bruises.

"Why the hell would I?" Stiles asked. Something thrummed through him, Scott could hear his heartbeat kick up and an acrid smell rolled from his pores, something that was at once all Stiles and yet unfamiliar. Scott wrinkled his noise. Fury. It was the smell of sheer rage. "I'm already sitting with my friends."

"Come on, Stiles, they're just putting up with you," Scott said.

"Excuse me?" Lydia asked in voice that was silk and venom. "The only person we're putting up with is you and my patience is rapidly disappearing. Go. Away."

Scott rolled his eyes.

"Everything's settled now, right?" he stated. "So, like, everything goes back to normal."

"There is no normal," Stiles intoned. "It's like averages. You can average a bunch of numbers and get something that isn't even in the set."

"Just get it out of your system, Stiles, tell me I'm a jerk, and we'll go back to the way it's always been. You know I'm your only friend. And, I mean, you're sort of lucky to still have me."

Kira made a noise Scott would almost call a snarl. One of the fluorescent bulbs lighting the cafeteria flickered and sparked then went dark.

"No, he'd be lucky to be rid of you," Danny said. "I never realized you were such a jerk."

Scott stood up and said to Stiles, "You know you can't afford to blow me off, Stiles. You've been friends with me since we were little, because no one else wants to be friends with you."

Stiles blinked at him. A flicker of hurt crossed his face, but then it just went blank.

"Wow," Jackson muttered.

"I'm going to rip your fucking head off," Erica said. Her tray went flying and she surged to her feet. Boyd caught her around her waist and spun her, so her wolf-shifted face was hidden from the rest of the room.

"You're right," Stiles said steadily. "I've been your friend all this time, no matter what you did, even with the way you've treated me since you were bit, but it wasn't because you were my only option. I was friends with you for you. Stupid me, I didn't get that you were just making do and marking time until you could trade up."

Isaac eyed Scott skeptically. "Seriously? Dick move, McCall."

"Not making any friends here," Boyd said.

Who cared what Isaac thought anyway? He was just some kid whose dad beat him until Kate Argent killed the guy. Isaac should have thanked the Argents for that. And Boyd was just some loser with a lot of muscles who never talked.

"Here's the thing, Scotty," Stiles went on, "I might not have any friends, but I think enough of myself that I'm not going to crawl to you. You can fuck right off."

"See how that feels after another couple days," Scott said.

"He won't have to," Kira declared. She came around the table, sat next to Stiles and snaked her arm around his waist. "I want to be Stiles' friend. He's loyal and smart and brave – "

"Not to mention he isn't a lying backstabber," Erica added. Her eyes were still flashing, but she looked human otherwise.

"Everyone here is Stiles' friend," Allison stated.

Scott gaped at her. Shame and horror flooded through him. She wouldn't like the way he'd talked to Stiles. Then came anger. Stiles had made him say those things with Allison right there. What kind of friend messed with your one true love? A part of him knew better, but blaming Stiles was so much easier than accepting his own culpability.

"Everyone except you, jerkface," Jackson corrected.

"You aren't his friend, you hate him!" Scott protested.

Jackson shrugged. "Not as much as I can't stand you," he said. "I think being friends with him will be incredibly annoying, but worth it to piss in your Wheaties. Not to mention, he's always had your back. If I'm friends with him, he'll have my back."

"That's not friendship!"

"It sounds a hell of lot more like it than doing everything for you and getting treated like dogshit," Danny said. He glanced at Jackson. "Jacks can be a douche, but he's stood up for me every time I've needed him. Seriously, you need to re-evaluate your priorities."

A raw sounding laugh escaped Stiles. "You know, it's true. Maybe Jackson isn't my friend, but he's had my back, which is more than you have."

Jackson buffed his nails against his shirt. "Fuck off." He sounded pleased.

"Allison – "

"You aren't the person I thought you were," she said, "and I don't like who you really are."

"Look, I didn't ask for the Bite," Scott tried to persuade her. "There has to be some way to undo it – "

"I don't care about that," she interrupted him. "Half the people at this table are that or something else and I like them all fine. I care about how you're treating my friend."

"Thanks, guys," Stiles said, "I appreciate it. I don't need it, but I appreciate it, all of you."

Kira squeezed him. "Not a problem. Also, I'm not dumb enough to throw away a friend. I meant what I said."

"You know what you do throw away?" Lydia asked. "Garbage."

"Like McCall," Jackson agreed.

Scott glared at them all, then stomped away. He left the spilled remnants of his lunch of the floor and pettily hoped they'd all end up having to clean it up.

Danny asked, "What the hell is the Bite?"

~~~

Penelope Garcia believed her own eyes.

She debated using the PO Box address she'd hacked from the Dellaluna law firm all the way back to Quantico. She'd tracked down Derek Hale's email too, but those were too easy to obtain even without a warrant. A phone call would be worse.

She hesitated until she couldn't bear it anymore, then found a postcard with three monkeys at a favorite bookstore. See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil.

She adored Morgan, but sometimes he was wrong.

Werewolves were real.

She dropped the card into the mail the next morning with a simple message and the email she created just for him on it. _If you need an ally sometime._ She was partial to men named Derek, after all.

**~~~November 27, 2012~~~**

**Gibbous Mourning Moon**

Stiles' phone vibrated in his pocket as he parked Roscoe in front of his house – recovered and repaired after being found in a ravine off the highway – but he sat for several minutes. Hilariously, he had Chem homework. Harris' replacement was a dour hard ass with a buzzcut and a writhing burn scar on one forearm. He seemed even handed, though, competent and willing to answer questions.

He'd also had a very weird conversation with Ms. Morrell. She was in the supernatural know. She wanted to teach him how to be an emissary. Whatever the hell that was. Stiles wasn't giving it a pass yet, but he wanted to talk to Derek first.

He didn't really want to go inside. It just felt exhausting to deal with his father, drunk or sober.

He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. "Two more years." But it wasn't, really, was it?

Who would take care of the house, the yard, the laundry once Stiles moved out? There would be no one to ride herd on his father's fast food addiction. No one to discreetly get rid of the liquor bottles or replace the shit his dad broke when he was drunk.

For the last three years, Stiles had been the one making sure all the bills were paid on time; before that Melissa had come in once a month, because his dad just refused to deal with 'petty shit'.

Sure, his dad was an adult. Maybe he'd pick up the slack if Stiles left for college. Maybe he wouldn't and the façade of competent law enforcement professional and single father would crumble.

Stiles didn't know if he could live with that. He didn't know if he believed his father's promise to quit drinking. Dad had 'stopped' drinking before. Seemed like the shocks 'on the wagon' weren't so good, the way he fell off it all the time.

He didn't know if he could live with his father much longer either, anyway. Before, he'd had Scott to talk to, even if Scott never had any solutions. He'd had the comfort of a friend, someone who remembered Stiles' mom too, some who got it.

But it seemed like Stiles had been fooling himself about Scott.

Life fucking sucked.

His phone vibrated again, so he lifted his hips enough to dig it out of his back pocket and check it.

Three texts. From Derek. Stiles opened the app.

**DH:** _You are pack._

**DH:** _And a friend._

Then:

 **DH:** _Fuck Scott._

Stiles choked and then laughed, really laughed, the tension that had his shoulders aching released. Derek, fucking Derek Hale, had his back. Which wasn't that surprising after all, he reflected, Derek did his best, not just for his friends, but for everyone, even sulky brats like Scott and himself.

Pack and friends, Stiles reflected, not necessarily the same thing, but Derek considered him both. That felt good.

His father was drinking a diet soda and writing out a list when Stiles ambled into the kitchen. "We missed doing Thanksgiving," he said. "I figured we could have it tonight instead."

"Kind of late to shop." The only turkeys would be frozen. No way they could thaw one in time to cook it this afternoon. Maybe they could snag a ham, though. Buy a pie and some sides from the deli. It violated dad's diet, but he deserved a reward for the diet soda. "Good thing we just need enough for me and you."

That made his dad's eyebrows go up. "No Scott?"

"No Scott, not even for Melissa's tamales," Stiles declared.

"Well, is there anyone else you'd care to invite? I feel like going whole hog for once."

Stiles thought about it. Boyd would be with his grandmother and Erica with her parents, but Derek and Isaac had no one this year.

"Sure. Let's invite Derek Hale and Isaac Lahey. I'd bet they haven't got any plans."

**~~~November 28, 2012~~~**

  **Full Moon**

  **Penumbral Lunar Eclipse**

The doorbell rang while Chris was upstairs. He had a packing box open, half filled with linens for the bathroom. Everything else was already gone, moved to the new apartment downtown. What was left was going into storage unless they donated it. He and Victoria had relocated enough times that it was a routine. Labeled boxes, numbered and entered in a list on his tablet. Back when they'd started Victoria had used a legal pad, but she'd been just as organized. He was still using her system.

Once he finished, he'd get a cleaning service in and turn the keys over to the realtor.

His phone vibrated with a message. The sender made Chris curious. Why would Hale be messaging him?

 **Unknown number:** _I'm at your door._

Chris checked the doorbell camera. Derek Hale stood on the front steps, the picture of a GQ bad boy with his leather and looks. He had his phone in his hand.

He didn't press the doorbell again.

He considered ignoring the bell and the message. Derek could hear him inside, of course, but he'd been raised to act human. If Chris didn't answer, Derek would back off. It wasn't an emergency or Derek wouldn't have come to the front door and tried the bell.

"All right," he said quietly. Derek heard him. He'd wait for Chris to come to the door.

Despite the knife in his boot and a pistol with wolfsbane loads, Chris was probably as lightly armed as he'd ever been in the presence of a werewolf.

"What can I do for you?" Chris asked.

"When will Allison be back?"

"Afternoon. She's at school."

Derek nodded. "Good. I talked to Deaton this morning."

"To send him packing?" Chris knew the emissary had helped his father, whether voluntarily or not, and given him the names of omegas in the area and then the Ito Pack's name and location. He'd been questioned about all of them by the FBI in the last week.

Derek inclined his head. The stern line of his mouth reflected how serious repudiating the former emissary was for him. Deaton was one of the few people left tied to Derek's past.

It occurred to Chris that he was part of that tiny group himself.

"And he said something that brought you here."

Derek huffed. "He isn't happy we aren't at each other's throats."

A cynical smile twisted Chris' lips at that news. "He tried to stir something up?"

"To prove he knew too much so that I wouldn't to send him away. I did anyway."

"You can't trust what he says."

"No, but I still have to ask you," Derek said softly. "Allison isn't yours, is she?"

Chris controlled his reaction, but he knew his heartrate had spiked. "She's an Argent," he insisted truthfully.

"Alexander Argent was her father."

Well, there was no point to lying about it. Derek knew. Chris couldn't see why it mattered to him, though. What did Alan Deaton think he would accomplish by revealing who Allison's biological father was?

How the hell did the former emissary know, for that matter?

Derek's severe features always seemed a little grim if he wasn't smiling and he seldom smiled, but Chris could read pain and unhappiness under the stoic mask.

Chris gestured to the empty rooms. "I'd invite you to sit, but… "

Derek rolled his shoulders. "I don't think this is a sit down to talk thing."

That was true. Hunters and werewolves didn't do sit downs. "You're right."

He marshaled the memories. Talking about it came hard, but he knew Derek wouldn't be here if this weren't more than Deaton playing games.

"Victoria and I were expecting a child. Alexander knew. I'd asked him for back-up on hunts after her second trimester. But she miscarried at seven months." The awful sorrow of that time returned to him. Vicky had been devastated. The house they'd made ready for the baby had haunted them both until they both agreed it would be better to leave it behind.

They were still moving into the new house in Bakersfield when Alexander had arrived, with a red-faced girl child wrapped in a stolen motel blanket. He'd pressed her into Vicky's arms, then staggered back out to his still running car. Chris had been so shocked he'd barely had the sense to run after him and demanded an explanation.

"Alex showed up with Allison. He said she was his – " Chris stopped and felt sick. Given the insanity Kate and Gerard had displayed, why should he believe Alexander had told the truth? "Fuck. Fuck, he stole her."

"He stole her," Derek agreed, "but he was her father." A muscle flexed in his jaw. "And mine, but I was born a wolf, not human."

Chris stared at Derek, at those pale green eyes, sage shot with amber, flecks of blue and silver gray. He'd always wondered about those eyes. The Hales had dark eyes and dark hair, like Allison. Argent eyes were light, blue or green. Alexander's had been pale green. He'd been blonde and handsome, with a jawline that Chris saw every day in Allison's face…

Suddenly, he wished the furniture wasn't all gone. He really wanted to sit down.

What the hell had Uncle Alex done? How could take Allison and leave his son? Why hadn't he told Chris the truth? If he'd had even an inkling, he would never have brought Allison and Victoria to Beacon Hills. Not even believing that the Hales were all gone, because someone who knew them might have seen something, somehow guessed, said. He'd never have involved Allison in the shitshow his family had made of so many lives. Instead, it had destroyed Victoria too and nearly taken Allison.

Part of him demanded he abandon everything, pick up Allison, and run as long and hard as he could until they were so far from Beacon Hills no one could ever find them.

Part of him knew they could never run far enough to escape Allison's bloodline. Hysterical laughter bubbled in his throat. No wonder that idiot McCall had been so obsessively attracted to Allison and her to him. McCall wasn't related, but he was a Hale Bite and she was Hale blood. Close enough to call to instincts buried too deep to recognize. Magic or chemistry dressed up as destiny.

"Because she was human."

Chris swallowed hard.

"You knew – "

"No," Derek interrupted, fierce and hurt at the same time.

"How could you not know!?"

"I was five!"

"Peter," Chris gasped. Peter had taken Allison hostage. He'd meant to kill her. How could he have done that if Allison had Hale blood? "Peter. He would have known. He wouldn't have threatened Allison if – "

"He killed Laura," Derek pointed out dryly. "She wasn't half Argent."

Fair. Fair, Chris conceded. Peter had been insane. Because Kate burnt him and his family to the bone. And Kate had done it to please Gerard, who wanted all werewolves dead after Alexander killed himself. And Alexander… had been bitten because he stole a baby from a werewolf pack. They would never have given a child up by choice.

"Do hunters know that an alpha werewolf can sink their claws into the spine and experience that person's memories?" Derek asked. He held up one hand and shot his claws, black and shining sharp, then reached around to the nape of his neck. "Here."

Chris shook his head.

"A very experienced, strong alpha can force someone to live memories too." Derek's soft voice was so very bleak. "But any alpha can take memories and wipe them away. My mother, though, she was so good at it… she didn't leave gaping holes behind. No one ever knew what she'd done to them. She didn't leave any ragged edges that would make you question what you didn't know."

Chris just felt sick.

Derek crossed his arms over his chest. "I never even thought about having a father, never mind who he'd been. She took it all away when he betrayed the pack. From me and all of them."

Trying to imagine that made Chris feel worse. The day was edging toward noon. He stared at the square of sunshine on the foyer tile and fought not to yell at Derek to stop.

"Why?" he asked hoarsely.

Derek shrugged. "I only know that Deaton said they meant to make peace between hunters and wolves – "

Chris choked on his laughter. "Sorry. God. Sorry."

He tried to imagine it. Argents were supposed to be led by the women, but Gerard had always had an inordinate influence. Kate never took over; he'd kept her under his thumb. Alex had been beloved, charming, an ethical hunter who Chris had modeled himself on far more than Gerard, but he hadn't been a leader, and he'd never had the kind of determination that could have stood up to Gerard. "He backed out. He realized what kind of fight he'd be facing."

"I don't know," Derek admitted. "I don't know how one hunter, even if he was trusted, could steal a pack baby. He did it, but mom bit him. She would have been his alpha once he turned."

"She would have compelled him to give up where he'd left the baby."

A tight nod confirmed Chris' thoughts.

"I don't know how it matters now," Derek said. "Since he killed himself instead rather than turn."

"Are you going to tell Allison?" Chris asked.

"Would it help anything?"

Chris didn't know. Would Allison hate the idea? He and Victoria hadn't raised her as a hunter. The hate wasn't a part of her worldview. They'd done their best to make her strong of mind and heart as well as body, rather than break her to fit the mold they'd both been raised to fit.

Would she want a brother?

Did Derek want a sister he'd never known? Maybe it was another blow to endure for him. How was he going to deal with knowing he was part of the family he hated for the destruction of his pack?

He probably wished someone could remove this knowledge from his mind too.

If they told Allison, then it would be orders of magnitude harder if Derek ever went bad and had to be put down. Allison had already done that with Kate. Just because she could didn't mean Chris ever wanted her to have to kill again.

He didn't like it. He didn't want to do it, but, "If she knows, no one can use it against her. Unless you don't want her to know."

Derek let out an indecisive noise. "No. I don't want her to be ambushed by it. I'm asking, though, do you think she would want to know?"

"I know my daughter." And she was still his daughter, would always be, whoever had fathered or given birth to her. Chris loved her more than anything in his life. He wanted nothing more than for Allison to be safe and happy. But to be happy, she had to be safe, and ignorance killed. Plus, Allison was stubborn as a stone wall. "She'd want to know."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Chris echoed.

"I'll stay and tell her."

"We'll tell her."

**~~~EPILOGUE~~~**

  **~~~December 1** **,** **2012++**

**Waning Full Moon**

The howling of a wolf at the edge of Hale territory drew Derek through the Preserve and part of the national forest to a glade where his mother had sometimes met with the alpha of the neighboring pack. He'd come with her once or twice, not as often as Laura, but he still recognized the alpha and smiled.

Satomi Ito hadn't changed an iota and it soothed something in Derek to see she'd survived when so many, so much, hadn't.

He glimpsed two other wolves behind her and hoped this wasn't a hostile move. He hadn't brought anyone with him. He was probably stronger than Satomi, but she was experienced and devious enough to balance that. Two more wolves would virtually guarantee he'd lose any fight with her.

"Alpha Ito," he greeted her.

"Alpha Hale," she replied. She studied him and finally smiled. "You've grown up, but I still see that boy who made such faces over my tea when he thought I couldn't see."

His cheeks heated in embarrassment. "I was an ungrateful brat."

She laughed and clapped her hands. "Not at all. That tea tastes like wet leaves and menthol, but it has protective qualities."

"Then I was even more ungrateful for what you shared."

"Such sweet manners," Satomi said. "You will be angry with me soon, but I ask you to remember there was no way to contact you or your sister."

They had run so hard, it was true. Laura had explained why they couldn't turn to the Ito Pack when Derek asked: they were too close and if someone saw or recognized them, the authorities would try to take him away from her, not to mention getting Satomi and her pack in legal trouble, which might be enough to bring hunters down on them too. They had to stay under the radar, they couldn't touch the family money, they couldn't trust other packs or other wolves: they might turn on them, try to take Laura's alpha spark.

Derek wondered now if that had been all true. No, they couldn't have stayed with Satomi's pack, but Laura's obsession with keeping them separate from every other wolf, her refusal to give the bite to anyone, to rebuild their pack into something halfway healthy, had harmed them both. If they'd had more than just each other, she wouldn't have faced Peter alone.

"I'll bear it in mind," he promised.

"Cora," she called and another wolf that Derek hadn't seen, hadn't registered as 'other pack', ghosted out of the trees.

It couldn't be, it couldn't be. Just someone else with the same name. His heart stuttered and he breathed in a great, gusting lungful of her scent.

She'd only been ten when their lives burned, now she was taller, still straight and delicate but sharp and steely. He picked out all the ways she looked like their mother, her dark brown hair, brown eyes, the oval of her face, the freckles on her nose. He saw Laura in her neck and the arch of her eyebrows, the curve of her mouth. He saw the wolf in the way she moved, the way her nostrils flared, her head dipped to protect her neck. If she'd been shifted, her ears would have been pinned back, her lips peeled from her fangs, a low warning growl rumbling at the back of her throat.

Most of all, though, Derek saw his little sister, everything she was now shaped by what she'd been then and what had happened since.

"Cora," he breathed. He was too shocked, too afraid to spook her away, to step toward her, but he stretched out his hand.

The most horrifying thing was that he couldn't find any thread of pack bond with her inside him. Not the beta to beta bond, not alpha to beta and back, nothing but a half familiar scent, a little like Laura, the basic scent of shared genetics. Cora smelled of pine and loam on top of her own scent, the wild perfume of cold and fur.

"It's really you," she said. Her expression didn't change, her voice stayed even, but tears slid silently down her cheek.

"How did – I thought you were dead," Derek said. He still held his hand out, willing to wait through her skittish approach, willing to wait if she wasn't ready for a hug, wasn't ready for him to rub his face against hers until their scents mingled and marked her as Hale Pack again. "I would have come back, I would have looked until I found you." He would have defied Laura if he'd had to, he'd hated leaving Peter behind, abandoning his fierce little sister would have been impossible.

He wondered if Laura had known Cora was alive, known she'd lose Derek if she let him find out.

It didn't matter now, he decided. Laura was dead, there was nothing to be gained from questioning her decisions. She done the best she could. Now Derek had to do the same.

"How did you end up alpha?" Cora demanded suspiciously. She hadn't taken his hand yet. Instead she scrubbed away her tears.

Derek squeezed his eyes shut for a breath, then opened them and looked at Satomi. She looked sharp and interested, bird-bright eyes and cocked head, more reminiscent of a raptor than a wolf.

He dropped his hand back to his side.

"Short version," he said. "Peter was catatonic after the fire. Laura wasn't eighteen yet, so we ran. As far as we knew, no one else survived the fire. Laura came back to check on Peter. He wasn't catatonic anymore, but he was crazy. He killed Laura to become an alpha, bit some kids along the way, and murdered everyone involved in the fire. I had to put him down. When I did, I became alpha."

Satomi sucked in a harsh breath. Derek hid a wince. As bad as that sounded, the details were even worse.

"Are you – have you joined Alpha Ito's pack?" he asked Cora. "It's – if that's what you've chosen, that's fair. I'm probably not who or what you were expecting."

"You don't want me?" Cora asked. A scowl, so familiar Derek had to swallow a sob, settled on her face.

"No!" Derek surged forward then, caught Cora and wrapped her in his arms. She was strong, tense and unresponsive to the hug, but so much smaller and slighter than him, it made his heart hurt. "Cora, I want you in my pack, but even more I want you safe and happy. I want you in my life in any and every way I can get." She softened and leaned into his chest, her arms coming around him. They both began to shake. "I don't want to hurt you trying to do something you don't want."

Her hair was silky and clean, but that wild scent was stronger in it too. The strands caught in his stubble.

"I don't have a pack," Cora muttered into his chest, breath damp-warm through the fabric of his shirt.

Derek lifted his head to frown at Satomi. The old alpha shrugged with a lift of her hands. _What can you do?_ She'd said he would be angry with her. Derek felt it, but it was so insignificant compared to Cora _alive_ , Cora here in his arms, Cora safe, it barely registered. He didn't understand how or why, so he'd wait before letting himself throw blame around.

Whatever had happened, part of it was his fault too, after all.

"We're Hales," he told Cora sincerely, "we're always pack."

She squeezed him hard before stepping away and dashing the heel of her hand at her eyes. Cora had always despised crying and denied it if she could.

"Can we talk?" he asked her, while meeting Satomi's gaze. "Can you tell me how – what happened to you?" He tightened his hold on her. "How you've been? Are you safe? Happy?"

Cora squirmed loose and shrugged.

"We could return to my home and talk," Satomi suggested. She smiled slightly. "Or a more neutral location, somewhere public, if you like?"

"There's that diner on the highway, just outside city limits," one of Satomi's other wolves suggested quietly. "It's sort of in both territories."

"And the milkshakes are good there," the other one added.

"Yes," Derek agreed.

None of them bothered with vehicles, choosing to slip into their beta forms and run down the mountain. Going back for vehicles would have taken much more time.

They took a giant booth in a back corner that let them watch the door and the rear parking lot through the windows. Satomi stationed one of her wolves on the far side of the highway, under cover and on overwatch, a call open between his phone and hers sitting on the table, volume turned down too low for humans to hear. If something surprised the watch wolf, they would hear it. If someone blocked out the cell coverage with a jammer the same way Gerard's hunters did at the BH police station, the call would drop, alerting them.

Derek made note of the method. Hunters utilized technology; werewolves needed to do the same. They weren't dumb animals. Peter had been right about that. They had the same advantage humans did over all the other predators that were stronger and faster than them: they were smarter. Most werewolves disdained human weapons, and by association all their other tools, even while they enjoyed living with human luxuries, but Derek knew that was stupid.

He was going to use every trick and tool hunters had and more to safeguard his pack.

Satomi's wolves were right. The milkshakes were good, the fries were hot and perfect, the bacon burger he indulged in juicy and topped with sharp cheddar. Maybe it all tasted better because he was sitting with Cora, watching her devour her own plate of food.

Satomi had hot tea and a salad. Derek suspected she only had that much to join in the meal.

She explained how her pack had virtually gone underground the morning they learned of the fire. Hunters had come through Hill Valley a few times, but never identified her or her pack members, in part because the omegas she took in often moved on to other packs. Her pack didn't fit the familiar framework hunters used to suss out werewolves, whose packs were nearly always families.

They even refrained from running the woods, staying home inside the first full moon after, then driving to distant national park for a full moon run the next. Because of that it was over three months after fire before anyone realized there was a werewolf in their territory. It took even longer to hunt her down, because Cora was in full shift, terrified and feral.

Satomi had recognized Cora as a Hale. Only later would she know which, after she coaxed her to shift back, but that had posed difficulties too. Cora was a minor and the only adult Hale was a badly burned catatonic under hospital care. She couldn't go through legal channels. Cora would have ended up in foster care, the story would have got out and the hunters who killed the rest of the Hales would have found and disposed of her too. Satomi knew Laura and Derek were alive, but they were in the wind.

Added to that problem was that Cora was in full shift and refused to come out of it for more than a few hours at a time.

Satomi had made the decision as alpha that she would allow Cora to stay in their territory. She could run in wolf form so long as she checked in every other day. After Cora had started to trust them a little more, Satomi had started her back on home schooling along with a couple of other pack children. She stayed out of sight and undocumented, along with a werecoyote child who followed Cora back from the Preserve about a year later.

"She smells like Hale too," Satomi flatly, with her hands folded on the table top.

Derek wracked his memory for any weres who had married into the pack and had a child. None of them had been werecoyotes. Coyotes didn't pack up the way wolves did, and their magic had strange twists, different from both the European and North American werewolves who had intermingled in the last five centuries. But even among real wolves and coyotes, the occasional cross mating resulting in coywolves. The Hale pack would have accepted a coyote partner or mate, especially if there had been a child.

"What's her name?"

"Malia," Cora said.

Derek's eyebrows went up. That was an awful lot like _Talia_.

"Ito Alpha made her shift human," Cora went on. "There was a car accident when she shifted the first time. She'd been in the woods since."

Derek rubbed at his eyes. "It _was_ an accident?"

Satomi shrugged. "So far as I could discover, but it happened on Hale territory. I hesitated to trespass. Public records only told me there were two girls in the car that crashed along with the mother. Only one child's body was recovered, it was assumed the second girl – Malia – had been ejected and the body taken by scavengers."

"Because they saw coyote tracks," Derek commented.

"And because the car wasn't found for a week."

"And she smells like she's Hale," he finished. "I don't remember any kids in the family who were coyote, but there were so many things I didn't know… " He shrugged at Satomi. "Does she want a pack?"

Satomi nodded at what he'd said. "Not particularly, though she might respond differently to you than me. It was no trouble to school her along with Cora and our pack's children."

"You have my thanks for that," Derek said. "It would be so much harder if they had to try to catch up."

"Yes, and they wouldn't be able to function as well in human society, which might draw attention to the rest of us," Satomi acknowledged. "Any kindness is not so altruistic on my part."

"I remember my mom telling me you took in omegas and betas who had lost their packs, gave them pack and support, and that it was harder than running a family pack." Derek ran a dried-out piece of French fry around his plate, chasing the last of the catsup. "I could tell she respected you."

"As I did her."

"It's a lot easier to run omegas out of your territory or kill them before they can do something stupid." He and Laura had encountered those sorts of reactions more than once when they strayed into or were simply crossing another pack's territory. Most of them backed down when Laura flashed her alpha eyes. They had to fight their way out twice though and once Derek had thought she would have to kill the other pack's alpha.

His feelings on omegas had shifted thanks to those encounters. He understood how agonizing and difficult life was without a pack, especially if they'd been killed, could be.

That was part of why he would tolerate Scott.

"That is the traditional response," Satomi agreed. She raised her eyebrows though. "You disagree with it?"

"I think some of them just need some help," Derek said finally. "Or to be left alone, by hunters and other wolves."

Satomi radiated pleasure.

Derek looked at Cora. "I wasn't supposed to be the next pack alpha. I wasn't taught all the ways an alpha commands a pack and I'm going to screw up. But I hope that maybe sometimes when I don't do something the way it was before, it might be all right." He didn't want to say better. He didn't want to imply his mother had made mistakes.

Though he was aware enough now to think she _had._ Derek had been taken in by Kate's machinations, but he'd been fifteen, vulnerable and hurting after Paige's death, and no one had been looking out for him. Peter had lost interest in manipulating Derek, Laura was obsessed with where she'd go to college, and the rest of the adults had had their own lives. As the alpha, Talia should have paid more attention to the defense of her pack. As a mother, Talia should have protected him from a sexual predator.

He knew that if someone like Kate got into Erica or Boyd or Isaac or Jackson's heads and used them, hurt them or the pack through them, it wouldn't be their fault. It would be abuser's and their parents' and Derek's, for not protecting them. Not just his betas either, Derek acknowledged. There was Stiles too, Lydia, _Allison_ – his stomach churned at the thought that Kate and Gerard had had access to her – even Scott. They were all kids, just like Cora. The way Derek felt about that extended even to Malia, whether she was a Hale or pack or not.

Grimly, he wondered how Cora would react to a new half-sister.

That would need to wait until Allison decided if she wanted to be pack or even family with him.

He turned his thoughts back to the moment.

"I'd like to meet Malia," he said. "Soon. And I want to snatch you and take you home with me right now," he added to Cora.

"But." The flat way she said it made him hurt.

"The house is a burnt-out wreck, I've been squatting so the hunters couldn't catch up with me – " and Peter and the cops for a while, "and now I'm in a hotel."

Cora shuddered at that.

"Yeah," Derek agreed. "I have to get a house that will work for us, and my betas, and then figure out if that will work permanently or if we should rebuild at the old site or somewhere different."

"Even buying an already built house takes time," Satomi said. "Building takes even longer."

"Money won't be a problem. I have my trust fund now." The Dellalunas had worked diligently while he'd been on the run. "And I'll have the rest of the estate soon." Derek frowned as he realized that had suddenly become more complicated. "Half of that should be yours, Cora."

"Then you give it to me."

"You have a trust fund you should get in two years."

"I'd have to prove who I am and explain where I've been," she pointed out.

"What happens to the trust without Cora?" Satomi asked.

"My share stays the same and the rest grows and waits for the next Hale heirs."

"You should just give me some from the estate, like you'll do for your betas," Cora said.

Derek blinked. How had she known what he planned? He meant to set up a college fund and medical insurance for Stiles and Lydia as well. Kira if she joined the pack formally. He guessed Lydia and Kira's parents wouldn't need the help, but he knew Beacon County didn't pay enough for the Sheriff to send Stiles to college without scholarships and loans.

He even meant to set something up for Scott, because he was still a Hale bite, even though Derek wouldn't have him in the pack. He'd be happy to pay to see Scott leave town to go to college.

Cora, though, deserved more from the estate. She was a Hale. "Okay," he said, though, and didn't try to argue further. They would work it out.

"I should stay with Ito Alpha a while longer?" Cora asked.

"If she is okay with that." Derek gave Satomi an inquiring look.

"It sounds sensible."

Phone numbers were exchanged and plans for further meetings were made.

Derek began planning as he made his way back to Beacon Hills. He'd need a real estate agent to move things along. Before that, he should work out what the pack would need in a house. Not many places would have as many rooms as they would need, even without room for expansion, and they needed something defensible, private, and with direct access to the woods.

He wanted to move fast enough to be in by Christmas. He owed the Sheriff and Stiles dinner after all.

He'd have to talk to Allison about introducing her to Cora.

The entire pack needed to meet her and Malia.

He needed to ask Stiles if he wanted to become the Hale Pack's emissary and find him a teacher if he did.

There was so much to do.

The End


End file.
